What makes a good research idea?

What information or device would help you manage your condition and improve your lifestyle? It might be helpful to consider:

• Will this idea help improve quality of life for patients?
• Will this idea help doctors treat or diagnose diseases?
• Will the outcome be simple and affordable for people to use?

You might also find it helpful to complete our ‘new research proposal: summary sheet‘ (link here). This is not a necessary step, but it provides prompts that may help organise your thoughts.

Please note, we cannot accept new proposals from individual members of the public. All research ideas must have the backing of an established patient organisation or charity.

What’s a feasibility assessment?

Our first step will be to assess your idea to see if it’s technically possible to turn into a study or clinical trial. We’ll consider:

• What is already known about the topic?
• How many participants will be required to run the study, and will we be able to recruit them? This is sometimes a problem in rare disease conditions.
• Is the proposed treatment or device available?
• Will specialist clinicians support this research?
• Is the research ethical?
• Are there potential funding sources?

Read our FAQs or contact us for more information!