Author: Sarah Crabtree

The Centre for Translational Medicine would like to remind researchers of the Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) Pre-grant Support Fund! 🎉This scheme offers up to £350 of funding to support PPIE activities in grant application! This is internal to staff across King’s Health Partners (KCL, GSTT, KCH, SLAM). Applications are reviewed on a monthly rolling basis. 
For more information on eligibility and to apply see Patient and Public Involvement/Engagement Pre-grant Support Fund :: King’s Health Partners

We are delighted to invite you to register your interest to the next series of ‘Developing Leaders in Palliative Care’ workshops. 

This series of workshops will offer PhD students at the Cicely Saunders Institute a chance to collaborate with patients and members of the public (PPI). PPI members will have the opportunity to share their experiences and expertise with the students, to help them with their PhD studies and ensure their research will have a real-world impact. No previous research experience is necessary.  

The first workshop will be held on Wednesday 21st January 2026, 11.30-13.00. This workshop will be held online, via Zoom. Attendees of the first workshop will be invited to two subsequent workshops, dates to be confirmed. The second workshop will be held online, and the third will have the option to be held in person, in London. All attendees will be reimbursed for their time and, if attending in person, we will pay reasonable travel expenses to the final workshop.  

In this first workshop, we will hold three parallel sessions, as detailed below: 

Room 1 

• Amelia Cook: The validity and acceptability of the Integrated Palliative Outcome Scale in diverse populations with advanced illness 
• Charlotte Davies: Does a standardised comprehensive palliative care assessment (CPCA) improve person-centred assessment; how may it work and what is required to support its implementation into routine hospice care? 

Room 2 

• Natalie Ramjeeawon: Family caregiver’s hospital experiences of older adults in the last three months of life  

• Megan Bowers: Experiences of changes in physical function: analysis of interviews with people with cancer and weight loss 

Room 3 

• India Tunnard-Johnson: Geographical variation in place of death for people with dementia vs cancer 

• Ana Maksimovic: Economics and decision-making in dementia 

• Evan Brock: The use of Artificial Intelligence in Palliative Care and Dementia Care 

To ensure representativeness, we will be asking you to provide some information about yourself. All the information you provide will be kept confidential. After the events, all data will be destroyed.  

We will need to keep the meeting small to give you time to express your views and discuss fully. If we receive more applications than spaces available, we may only be able to invite some applicants to attend. However, we will be in touch to let you know of future opportunities.  

If you are interested in attending, please fill in the form using the link below to register your interest by Monday 5th January 2026. 

Developing PhD students through Patient and Public Involvement workshops – Fill out form 

A final list of attendees will be determined and notified by Friday 9th January 2026.  Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

Best wishes,
India, Rachel, Megan, Natalie, Ana, and Amelia

Hello. My name is Ellie and I am a research dietitian from Imperial. I am applying for funding for a PhD research project looking at diet advice given to women with recurrent ovarian cancer.

–  What diet information is available online, and what do dietitians and clinicians advise?

–  What is the expert-consensus on best-practice for diet and ovarian cancer?

– Is proactive, earlier dietary advice beneficial? A feasibility study 

I am interested in hearing from people with lived experience of ovarian cancer (including relatives and care givers as well as women themselves) who can help with the design of this research. Involvement could be a small one-off meeting (e.g. to review a leaflet or provide insight and advice) or a larger contribution (e.g. regular meetings and involvement with analysis) depending on your interest and experience.

If you or someone close to you has or has had recurrent ovarian cancer, and you would like to know more, please send me an email at ellie.ware@nhs.net to express your interest. Please include your name, email address or phone number, and a brief summary of your experience.

Please share with anyone you might know

Thank you 

Dear all,

I wanted to share with you the blog we have written following the PPI PhD student workshop series “Developing leaders in palliative care”. The workshops were extremely well received by PPI attendees and the PhD students – who really valued the time and experiences being shared. Please read the full blog here: https://kingsengagedresearchblog.wordpress.com/2025/12/09/developing-leaders-in-palliative-care-through-intimate-honest-and-open-conversations/

We are pleased to let you all know that we were fortunate enough to be funded to run a second series of workshops and will soon be advertising the opportunities available – watch this space!

Best wishes,

India, Megan and Rachel

New King’s/MRC Public Partnership Fund: Supporting MRC applicants to involve public contributors at pre-application stage.

We are delighted to announce the upcoming launch of a new funding scheme to support early career researchers and those looking to transition to research independence to better involve public partners in the development of their MRC grant applications.

As outlined in the MRC’s Public Partnership Strategy, the MRC is placing a greater emphasis on the meaningful involvement of public partners in the shaping of the research it funds. Such partnerships with patients and/or communities during grant development has been shown to increase the relevance of research proposals and their potential for impact.

Opening in January 2026, the King’s/MRC Public Partnership programme will provide funds of up to £400 to successful applicants, along with mentorship from experts in patient and public involvement, to support early-stage public involvement.

An information session will be held on Wednesday the 14th of January at 13:30, ahead of the schemes launch on Monday 19th of January.

You can sign-up to the information session here.

For more information, please get in touch with the King’s MRC Public Partnership Team at MRC-PPF@kcl.ac.uk

Welcome to our new King’s College London Nursing, Midwifery, and Palliative Care Webpage for all things relating to public involvement!

Please explore the website to find out more about what we are doing and how the website can be used to hear about events and learn more about research.