Analysis of racism in UK health research brought together, for the first time, considerable evidence of systemic barriers to ethnic equality across UK health research. The Ethnicity and Health Unit wanted to address these inequalities and sought funding from NHS England's Integrated Care Systems Research Engagement Network Development (later titled NHS England's Integrated Care Systems Research Engagement Network) grant. 

Over the last three years, the EHU has secured £470k in funding to run NHS England's Integrated Care Systems Research Engagement Network programmes within Northwest London to increase ethnic diversity in health research.

Having gained the £100k grant in round one, the Ethnicity and Health Unit partnered with local communities including: Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprises such as CVS Brent and Ealing and Hounslow CVS, Integrated Care Board North West London, Primary Care Networks, Academic institutions and Charities, Imperial College's Patient Experience Research Centre, to engage Northwest London's most diverse communities in conversations around their health interests and research with a goal to develop a research network reflective of local communities’ challenges and needs. ICS REN II saw growth in engagement across our Northwest London communities, moving from two boroughs to four. ICS REN III focussed on addressing barriers to research engagement, focusing on mental health and seldom-heard voices.

Children and young people (CYP) constitute >20% of the UK population and >10% of healthcare spending but only 5% of health research funding. National and local policies and interventions targeting CYP must be underpinned by an evidence base that understands, supports and empowers CYP as participants and collaborators to help sculpt health research. This increased research participation can also lead to more effective and evidence-based interventions to address young people’s mental health and health inequalities. However, systemic barriers currently exist to meaningful CYP participation in research:

1. Micro (i.e., researcher confidence, skills and knowledge);

2. Meso (i.e., research infrastructure; e.g., funders not promoting inclusion of <18s, ethics committees without paediatric expertise to manage risk, involvement and engagement guidance omitting CYP needs), and;

3. Macro (e.g., strategies, interventions and guidance acting as barriers to public and participant research engagement).

ICS REN III  aims to explore and co-develop interventions to mitigate these barriers. We aimed to increase the participation of young people in research by training researchers and conducting workshops with a wide variety of children and young people groups. The work included taking a visual record of the meetings and providing accessible feedback on the meetings to participants.