General responsibilities and Polyfon's role
The principal investigators of individual research projects are responsible for ensuring meaningful service user and family involvement. They may choose to use Polyfon's lived experience panel and coordinator for involvement as resources when planning and implementing involvement activities, but they are not required to do so.
The lived experience panel has an advisory role within the Polyfon collaboration. One of its key functions is to promote the meaningful use of lived experience expertise across Polyfon's activities. The panel has broad representation from different fields and regions. It is therefore usually neither practical nor appropriate to recruit the entire panel as a service user panel for a specific research project.
Please note: If members of Polyfon's lived experience panel are recruited to a project's service user panel, project proposals and other project documents may state that they were recruited from Polyfon's lived experience panel. However, they should not be described as representing the lived experience panel.
The lived experience panel has an elected chair and deputy chair. Polyfon's coordinator for involvement is part of the Polyfon secretariat and supports the work of the panel. The coordinator also promotes knowledge about and use of lived experience expertise, including by encouraging collaboration and facilitating contact between the Polyfon knowledge cluster and relevant service user organisations.
Who should you contact?
Contact Polyfon's coordinator for involvement. The coordinator can provide independent advice and, together with the chair and deputy chair of the lived experience panel, assess whether a request should be referred to Polyfon's lived experience panel.
Contact details can be found at the bottom of the page about Polyfon's secretariat and regional coordinators.
When should you get in touch?
Contact Polyfon as early as possible during the planning phase of your project. If you would like the lived experience panel to be involved in an advisory capacity, your request should be submitted at least three weeks before the relevant panel meeting.
See the meeting calendar for Polyfon's lived experience panel on the panel's information page.
What can you contact Polyfon about?
The coordinator for involvement can:
- Provide general advice on collaboration, roles, expectations, compensation and related matters (see also Polyfon's guide to service user and family involvement).
- Suggest relevant service user organisations, networks and individuals that researchers may wish to contact.
- Help prepare a dialogue with Polyfon's lived experience panel where appropriate.
The lived experience panel can:
- Provide feedback on specific aspects of planned or ongoing projects.
- Suggest relevant service user organisations, networks and individuals that researchers may wish to contact.
When it is appropriate to present a project to Polyfon's lived experience panel, it is usually not helpful to distribute a full project proposal for written comments.
Focused oral presentations at a panel meeting, usually held on Teams, tend to work best. Researchers are encouraged to identify the topics and questions on which they would particularly like advice and feedback.
This information was last updated on 20 February 2025.