Evaluating a City Lab Process in Mannheim's district Neckarstadt-West: Three main challenges for the evaluation

Abstract

The LBG OIS Center established a new Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) Implementation program aiming at ‘active involving’ public members in research across different phases of the research cycle – from setting the agenda to disseminating results – and its governance. The program offers funding and facilitation of these PPIE activities. The first PPIE pilot call was launched in Autumn 2020. It supports researchers in Austria with up to EUR 60.000 in order to implement their PPIE activities. In addition, the program offers support in the form of consultation, training, knowledge exchange and networking opportunities. One important characteristic of the selection process is the composition of the expert panel, bringing together transdisciplinary expertise from different areas (scientific experts, patients, and students). The expert panel recommended 11 out of 25 PPIE projects for funding (success rate 44%). 45% of the applicants participated in the support offers prior to the call and 52% in the continuing support offer after the call had been closed. Based on our online surveys, overall, participants were very satisfied with the support offers. Learnings of the first call address the eligibility of applicants. In the selection meeting, we found that different understandings of ‘active involvement’ were negotiated among experts. However, this was not a problem due to the open and collaborative atmosphere and mutual learning opportunity for experts. The panel suggested opening the call to non-research bodies, which indicates small changes in the application format – e.g. video and text-based applications in German and English. Despite of small adaptions in the second PPIE Pilot Call 2021, it seems that the funding instrument was appropriate and reflects a low-threshold offering for researchers introducing public involvement activities in their work.