Mutual trust is what forms the foundation of a dialogue between researchers and those affected by research. Our PPI activities contribute to the White Paper: Clinical Research’s goal to establish strong partnerships with patients and society.
In 2022, we finished analysing the results of our PPI mapping project. The goal of the project was to identify and characterise PPI initiatives and projects within academic clinical research in Switzerland and thereby determine the status quo. Altogether, 48 initiatives and projects were identified. An overview of PPI initiatives and research projects in Switzerland is available on the SCTO’s website and will be updated regularly.
We published a video online explaining PPI in lay language in English, French, German, and Italian. The short video can be used by anybody who needs to explain what PPI is and how it works. In addition, the SCTO held presentations or acted as a moderator on the topic of PPI at ten different events throughout 2022. In April and May, the SCTO offered an online course called PPI in a Nutshell to clinical research professionals who were considering applying for funding from the investigator-initiated clinical trials (IICT) programme of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). The course was well attended with a total of 66 participants. A video recording of the 2022 course is available on YouTube, and an updated version of the course will be offered again live online in 2023.
To implement PPI in a sustainable manner, the SCTO and its Clinical Trial Unit (CTU) Network are committed to compensating PPI contributors fairly and transparently. Therefore, the SCTO has published a remuneration policy in order to facilitate the compensation of patients and representatives of the public for their PPI contributions.
Having completed its first milestone of mapping out existing PPI initiatives and projects in Switzerland, the PPI mapping working group was transformed into an overall SCTO PPI working group. This multistakeholder working group was established to support the SCTO and its CTU Network with their PPI activities and to do the preparatory work for establishing a future PPI Forum for academic clinical research in Switzerland. The working group meets regularly to share information and lessons learnt and to provide updates on ongoing PPI initiatives and projects. It is currently working on a set of templates that aim to foster the implementation of PPI.