This introductory online course will be taught over two half-days and will include live and interactive elements (e.g. case study RCT on who should be included and why, challenges you and your team may face, and overcoming the barriers).

By the end of the course, as participants, you should be able to:

1. understand who to include in your research study;
2. understand where your research study should take place;
3. understand the importance of including community engagement in your research project;
4. identify possible barriers for people who want to take part in research;
5. gain insight into the tools and guidance which are available and use strategies to help you design and conduct an inclusive research project;
6. understand how to sufficiently resource an inclusive research project; and
7. address what data you should collect and when to monitor inclusivity within your project.

This course is designed for:

• Researchers working on studies/trials involving human participants
• Trial managers and co-ordinators
• Chief Investigators / Principal Investigators
• Other specialists looking to understand inclusive research processes including clinicians, health care and public health researchers

The course will specifically cover:

1. introduction to inclusivity;
2. how to decide who should be in your research study;
3. measures to redress mistrust in research;
4. ways to address language barriers and accessibility issues in research;
5. how to design and budget for an inclusive research study; and
6. how and when do you collect protected characteristic data to monitor inclusion of a diverse population in your study.

This course is taught by staff from the University of Bristol and other Higher Education Institutions including researchers from Trial Forge and the MRC-NIHR Trials Methodology Research Partnership Inclusivity subgroup.

To make sure the course is suitable for you and you will benefit from attending, please ensure you meet the following prerequisites before booking:

Before booking this course, please make sure you read the information provided above about the target audience and prerequisites. It is important that you have access to the relevant IT resources needed for the course and meet the knowledge prerequisites to ensure you can get the most from the course.

We do not charge fees for pilot courses, nor do they count against your allocation of free course places. However, in return we ask that you take the time to provide full and thorough feedback so we can effectively evaluate the success of the course.

Pilot courses are extremely popular and all live sessions must be attended in full. You should only book onto this course if you are able to commit to attending in full and have time to provide detailed feedback. Attendance is monitored. Failure to attend in full, without a valid reason, will result in your access to pilot course materials being rescinded and you will not be permitted to attend any further pilot courses within the same academic year.

Bookings are taken via our online booking system, for which you must register an account. To check if you are eligible for free or discounted courses please see our fees and voucher packs page. All bookings are subject to our terms & conditions, which can be read in full How to pay your short course fees..

For help and support with booking a course refer to our contact us, here or feel free to booking information page directly. For available payment options please see: FAQs

Participants are granted access to our virtual learning platform (Blackboard) 1 to 2 weeks in advance of the course. This allows time for any pre-course work to be completed and to familiarise with the platform.

To gain the most from the course, we recommend that you attend in full and participate in all interactive components. We endeavour to record all live lecture sessions and upload these to the online learning environment within 24 hours. This allows course participants to review these sessions at leisure and revisit them multiple times. Please note that we do not record breakout sessions.

All course participants retain access to the online learning materials and recordings for 3 months after the course. 

Please note that this is a pilot course and therefore no Materials & Recordings (UoB only) option is available.

100% of attendees recommend this course*.
*Attendee feedback from December 2024.

Here is a sample of feedback from the last run of the course:

"I understood much better how, sadly, current research is not generally done in an inclusive way, and the importance of this omission in practice. It was great to hear how much progress is being made in this field though, with great examples of best practice from the fantastic and knowledgeable speakers." - course feedback, December 2024

"So so useful. Many barriers I had not seen before or ones I did not know we were allowed to remove. So many people are excluded as a standard from studies - It feels freeing to not have to do this and to see if the intervention will end up being used by a population they should not be exclude directly or indirectly." - course feedback, December 2024

"This course was extremely interesting and I felt that the speakers gave very valuable advice and experience on how to make research more inclusive. It was really good to hear from a range of speakers about a few different topics, and I also liked that the speakers gave examples of resources and places where we can access more information." - course feedback, December 2024

"Excellent quality of presentations and information given. Enjoyed the breakout sessions, and the opportunity to ask questions throughout." - course feedback, December 2024

"The course provided interesting talks with lots of signposting of useful resources. It made me think about how the research I have been involved with to date could have been designed in a more inclusive manner. I think the sessions were all closely linked and relevant to understanding the course objectives." - course feedback, December 2024

"This course was excellent, a really good range of very knowledgeable speakers from different perspectives such as RCTs and community based work. Good opportunities to ask questions too." - course feedback, December 2024

"The thing I will take away most from this course is how many ways there are to make our research more inclusive and how important it is that we do so. Ensuring eligibility criteria does not limit participation is something I had never even properly considered. Also how having knowledge and understanding on why people feel they way they feel about research (historical context). Finally, I learnt about some terminology which should and shouldn't be used which I am very grateful for." - course feedback, December 2024

"I will take away that improving inclusivity in clinical research needs to be a continuous process, with sufficient resources, time, funding and engagement allocated to this throughout the lifecycle of each project." - course feedback, December 2024