About us

Public insights

One way of helping us to appreciate people's views about our work and our science is through public attitude studies. We get involved in a variety of public attitude studies, very often with partners, as advisers, commissioners, funders or enablers. This work helps to ensure that we are aware of public attitudes to medical research and to take account of public concerns. Insights from this work can also help our researchers understand how best to communicate their work.

Title of public dialogue activities and attitude surveys	Partners	Year
Understanding Patient Data	A task force led by Wellcome and supported by the MRC	On-going
Research Councils UK Public Insight Research	Led by RCUK on behalf of the UK Research Councils	2017
Factors affecting public engagement by researchers	Led by Wellcome on behalf of a consortium of funders of UK public research including the UK Research Councils	2015
Genome sequencing: What do patients think?	Led by Genetic Alliance UK with funding from the MRC	2015
Openness in Animal Research	Led by Understanding Animal Research with support from the MRC and ScienceWise	2013
Public Involvement Impact Assessment Framework (PiiAF)	Developed by the PiiAF Study Group with funding from the MRC	2013
Public and professional views towards donating human biological samples for biomedical research	Led by the Strategic Tissue Repository Alliances Through Unified Methods (STRATUM) with support from the MRC	2013
Public dialogue on data openness, data re-use and data management	Led by RCUK on behalf of the UK Research Councils	2012
Assessing Public Attitudes to Health Related Findings in Research	Led by Wellcome with support from the MRC	2012
RCUK Review of e-Science	Led by EPSRC on behalf of the UK Research Councils	2009
Public and stakeholder stem cell dialogue (PDF, 1.27MB)	Led by the MRC in partnership with Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), with support from Sciencewise	2008
Public Consultation on the Use of Personal Health Information in Research (PDF, 1.43MB)	Commissioned by the MRC	2007
Public Consultation on Ageing Research - Research into Public Attitudes Towards	Led by the MRC in partnership with Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)	2006
Factors Affecting Science Communication by Scientists and Engineers	Led by The Royal Society on behalf of a consortium of organisations including the UK Research Councils	2006
Attitudes to Animal Research	Commissioned by members of the Coalition for Medical Progress including the MRC	2005 2002
Public Consultation on Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies	Run in partnership with Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Department of Health and the Food Standards Agency	2004
Public Consultation on the Use of Human Embryos in Medical Research	Commissioned by a consortium of organisations including the MRC	2003
DNA 50th Anniversary Survey	Commissioned by the MRC	2003

Consultations responses

Details of MRC written submissions to consultations and inquiries including parliamentary select committees, Government and other organisations are available at Consultation responses.