FOI_25-096 Citizens academy
Date of response: 15 May 2025
We have now considered your request of 31 March 2025 for the following information:
I am conducting an FOI-based study to explore the current state of community and/or patient public involvement and engagement (PPIE) at the executive board where health research strategy is set within universities in the UK.
Question 1. Does your Faculty of Medicine/Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry have an executive board where health research strategy is set?
Our response:
Yes.
Question 2. If yes, is there a PPIE (patient public involvement engagement) representative on this board with the specific remit to provide insights into research agenda setting from the perspective of a patient with lived experience of health issues or as a member of the public/community? [I am not referring to the presence of a lay chair].
Our response:
No. The PPIE representatives do not sit on any internal Faculty or School Management Board.
Question 3. Is there a PPIE advisory structure (e.g. board, committee, panel) which provides PPIE insights to inform the work of the executive board? (not within individual study groups- I refer to high level feedback into your research strategy meetings).
Our response:
Yes. Our Faculty of Medicine and Health (FMH) has a PPIE hub, the Citizens Academy and the Citizens Academy Steering Group has representation from Research and Teaching across the faculty. There are at any one time, at least four PPIE members on this committee.
Feedback is provided by the Citizens Academy Director into the FMH Research Executive that feeds into both UEA Research Executive and FMH Executive. Work is also presented to the Faculty Learning and Teaching Quality committee with feedback given.
Question 4. Is there a PPIE representative on any lower-level boards (e.g BRC)?
Our response:
Yes. Each department has an academic lead for PPIE embedding this within each teaching programme.
The Citizens Academy supports PPIE within research providing expert advice and best practice guidance to all researchers within the faculty.
Question 5. If yes to question 2, 3 or 4, please provide the most recent minutes/agenda with a list of members with designated roles/remits (not names).
Our response:
Please see accompanying document, our ref: FOI_25-096 Appendix A. Whilst names and job titles have been redacted under s.40(2) personal information, a list of designated roles have been provided.
On this occasion, it is not possible to provide all the requested information. The Act contains a number of exemptions that allow public authorities to withhold certain information from release. We have applied the following exemption to part of your request
| Exemption | Reason |
|---|---|
| s.43(2), Prejudice to commercial interests | Disclosure of information would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of a person as defined by the Act |
Commercially sensitive information has been withheld from FOI_25-096 Appendix A. It is our belief that release of this information would prejudice the commercial interests of the University.
To compete in the Higher Education market, with leading UK and international universities, the University must ensure that information that would be strategically useful to its competitors is not placed in the public domain. Release of such information would potentially compromise the University’s ability to undertake leading research, provide an excellent student experience, be a well-led, managed and sustainable institution. The University’s position would be compromised if it were to release information that would benefit its competitors.
Citizens Academy is a patient and public involvement (PPI) hub for the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, which supports researchers and teaching staff to involve people with lived experience related to healthcare and members of the public in their research and teaching. Promoting Citizens Academy is vital to the success of University funding applications. Citizens Academy engage with community organisations, charities and the voluntary sector as well as local organisations. The way in which we choose to promote Citizens Academy is a core element of commercial activity of the University since it affects our funding streams and is critical to maintaining our ability to compete on a level playing field.
The Higher Education market is highly competitive with over 160 institutions competing to recruit high quality students and staff, research funding and accreditation. The way in which we choose to monitor, evaluate effectiveness against our Citizens Academy strategy and plans maintains our competitive position in the Higher Education market and these activities are undoubtedly commercial.
Citizen Academy meeting minutes and action plans contain some commercially sensitive information. Significant resources are devoted to ensuring the investments we place in any of our activities across the University, are undertaken efficiently, effectively and in accordance with the appropriate frameworks, which are all major contributory factors in our ability to compete successfully in the market. The way in which we choose to internally communicate and deliver our Citizen Academy plans affects our ability to maintain healthy ongoing buyer-supplier relations and our ability to secure funding at the best possible price.
We have established that some of the information contained in the meeting minutes such as communications and action plans are commercially sensitive as they detail our current and future commercial activities, which are linked to the overall budget and expenditure of the University and therefore carries measurable economic value which is considered to be commercially sensitive. Under FOI, release to one requester is considered as release to the world and this information is not shared with our competitors or made public in anyway. If the University were to disclose this information, it would be likely to seriously undermine the trust and confidence with community organisations, charities and the voluntary sector as well as local organisations and members of the public . Release of this information which would be strategically useful to our competitors if it was placed in the public domain as it would potentially prejudice the University's ability to compete in the market. In a competitive commercial environment disclosure of this data would have a measurable impact on our share of the market which is likely to result in financial and reputational loss to the University. Our Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences would certainly use such information from our competitors, and it seems inconceivable that other universities would not do the same.
Our reputation with both the public as well as colleagues in other organisations is therefore vital to our success. Disclosing the minutes and action plan directly affects our reputation which may reduce public involvement at University, which in turn could have an impact on Faculty of Medicine research income as well as our teaching quality and feedback.
The application of this exemption requires an examination of the public interest in disclosure as opposed to that in non-disclosure.
The factors in favour of disclosure would include:
Increasing public understanding of the Citizens Academy
Enhancing the transparency and openness of the actions undertaken by the Citizens Academy
Increasing public confidence in the integrity and probity of the Citizens Academy process
Factors in favour of withholding the information are largely laid out in the explanation for the use of the exemption above but would include:
Ensuring there is fair competition for public sector contracts
Protecting the ability of public authorities to compete on a level playing field
After consideration of the above factors, we believe, on balance, that the public interest lies in maintaining the exemption.
Question 6. Are PPIE representatives remunerated?
Our response:
Yes.
Question 7. Do you require PPIE representatives to do any training? If yes, please specify e.g NIHR training or in house-training.
Our response:
Yes. Training is offered to PPIE members that is specific to the area that is being supported. All training is done in-house.
Question 8. I realise that some of this information may already be available. However, I was unable to locate it. So, if it is, please provide me with a link to the data.
Our response:
Please see: The Citizen's Academy. Part of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at UEA. Please note: this webpage is due to be updated and therefore the information would have only been accurate at the time it was written.