A new VOICE^® in Scotland

The agreement, via the Advanced Care Research Centre (ACRC), will empower patient and public involvement and engagement (PPIE) teams across the University of Edinburgh to make use of the VOICE^® digital platform tools, whilst they also grow the VOICE^® community in Scotland. As with all of our collaborations, this will have a significant impact on the experience of our valued VOICE^® members, as members will now be able to influence and shape the fantastic research being carried out by the ACRC and the University of Edinburgh.

Alex Mitchell, our Strategic Partnerships Manager, said:

With VOICE^® having been established in Newcastle upon Tyne, growing the VOICE^® community in nearby Scotland has always been an aspiration of ours.  To be able to do this through a collaboration with the University of Edinburgh is incredible. We look forward to working with them to share learning, strengthen PPIE in research and continue to offer VOICE^® members exciting opportunities to influence research and innovation.

Advanced Care Research Centre (ACRC) 

The ACRC is a new, multi-disciplinary research programme. The vision is of high‐quality, data‐driven, personalised and affordable care that supports the independence, dignity and quality of life of people living in their own homes and in supported care environments. The aim of the ACRC is to transform care in later life using personalised care enabled by data science, artificial intelligence, assistive technologies and robotics embedded in systems of health and social care which are highly responsive to the wishes, priorities and needs of individual people in later life.

Jenny Robertson, PPIE coordinator at the ACRC, had this to say about the new collaboration:

Working with members of the public and patients is crucial to our mission. VOICE^® is an innovative digital tool that enhances what we are doing in this area. We have already started to work with people through VOICE^®, and we look forward to reflecting their insights and experiences in our research.

Dr. Sue Lewis, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, also commented:

We are very pleased to be collaborating with VOICE^®, and to be joining forces with them to develop the network of citizens involved in VOICE^® and public and patient involvement and engagement more broadly. I’m confident that VOICE^® will lead to exciting new ways of engaging meaningfully with participants and enable researchers to extend the reach of University of Edinburgh studies.