Raising Voices In Reasearch

Raising Voices in Research (RViR) is a project delivered by Action Hampshire in partnership with Hampshire and Isle of Wight Integrated Care Board, University Hospital Southampton, and The Engaging Communities Research Centre at The University of Winchester. First funded by NHS England in 2022 as part of the Research Engagement Network (REN) programme, RViR’s overall aim is to increase diversity in health and social care research participation.

Our current RViR projects

RViR 2026 – 2027: We will be continuing previous phases of RViR work that have been successful:

• Recruiting 12 Voluntary, Community, and Social Enterprise (VCSE) organisations to deliver two workshops with their communities to increase their understanding and awareness of health research through two workshops.
• Six of these VCSEs will go on to take part in our Research Adaption Programme – working with researchers to adapt studies to increase their accessibility
• Co-designing three Research Collaborative events

Research-Friendly Spaces: Our second project this year is funded by NIHR Regional Research Delivery Network South Central (NIHR RRDN) and will aim to support community assets to host research delivery in their settings. From previous phases of RViR, we know that community members prefer to access community settings, so we want to find out what researchers would need to be able to conduct research in these spaces and then create a directory of community assets that meet this criteria and would like to support research. This project is open to all community spaces but we would particularly like to reach rural and coastal communities.

Research Collaborative: Across all phases of RViR we have held Research Collaborative events, both online and in-person. These events provide a space where VCSE organisations, community members, and researchers can come together to discuss best practice for engaging underserved communities in research and share opportunities for research participation, involvement, and engagement. Anyone based within the South East of England is welcome to join! Click here to find out more or to join.

To read more about our previous phases of RViR, please visit our website rvir.co.uk