Overview

‘Deliberative workshops with public members: Establishing Trust in the use of synthetic data’ (DELIMIT) was a UKRI funded public engagement study led by Cardiff University. The aim was to understand attitudes and perceptions of the general public on the use of ‘synthetic’ or mock data in research.

Egality supported the research team to recruit members of the public for a series of 4 online deliberative workshops, with a focus on recruiting those from diverse ethnic groups, diverse age-groups, and diverse geographies, across the UK. Egality partnered with 4 community organisations across the UK to deliver this, x2 in England, x1 in Scotland, and x1 in Wales and our work included delivering a communication workshop, a brief recruitment campaign, and providing ad-hoc support to the research team as required.

Outcomes

• Delivered a messaging and communications workshop with the community organisations and the research team to refine the language used for the study, make it accessible, and agree on a consistent messaging for recruitment
• Developed engaging recruitment materials (as shown above), e.g., social media posts, posters, newsletter blurbs, etc.
• Received 55 expressions of interest through the outreach by the x4 community organisations
• Research team shortlisted 20 participants from this and invited them to the workshops
• The engagement project achieved a well-balanced demographic with 70% of participants identifying as ethnicities other than ‘White’ (i.e., those from Arab, Asian, Black, African, Caribbean, Latin American, and Mixed race backgrounds)
• Egality’s community outreach approach led to a successful public engagement project, giving the research team a varied range of insights and lived experiences from a diverse range of people across the UK