SUBMIT YOUR REQUEST OR RESEARCH PROPOSAL

VMIAC embraces, enables, empowers, & emboldens the lived experience community

We prioritise lived experience-led research.

We welcome discussion about consumer principles, consumer leadership and engagement in research, and our criteria for VMIAC to promote, support, partner, or endorse your research.

Before submitting a request, please read:

VMIAC’s Lived Experience-Led Research Strategy reflects VMIAC consumer principles and ethics and our commitment to human rights, social change, and innovation.

WHAT ARE OUR CRITERIA FOR SUPPORTING YOUR RESEARCH?

Supporting external research projects

Research partnerships

Research endorsement

Promoting research opportunities to people with lived experience

Through our Lived Experience Voices in Research Program, we engage with members to determine lived experience mental health research priorities. Through our advocacy and partnerships, we work with others to develop lived experience-led research policy, agendas, and priorities across the mental health sector.

VMIAC also endorses the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System (2021) for reform led by lived experience.

Supporting external research projects

We provide a range of support for external research projects, including:

  • promoting opportunities for involvement to our members and people with lived experience (more details below)
  • advice about incorporating co-planning, co-design, and consumer principles in your research
  • funding for lived and living experience workforce (LLEW) research projects as part of the Victorian Department of Health’s LLEW Development Program in 2024 (details pending).

Please submit a request using the button above if you are seeking support for your research.

Research partnerships

We aim to shape research policy and agendas across the Victorian mental health sector with lived experience priorities.

We welcome research partnerships with government, research institutions, lived experience researchers, lived experience-run and other community organisations and services that will enhance outcomes for people with lived experience, particularly those from priority groups.

Read more about our research partnerships.

Endorsing your research

VMIAC is working on lived experience criteria for endorsing high quality research that advances the wellbeing of people with lived experience. We will share more as this work unfolds.

Lived experience researcher, Dr Chris Maylea, and his colleagues have produced a Consumer-perspective Reflection Appraisal Tool for evaluating research against consumer principles.

Promoting research participation opportunities to people with lived experience

VMIAC aims to promote opportunities for people with lived experience to be involved in high quality research projects that value their expertise, align with lived experience-led research priorities, and respect consumer principles of engagement. Our Research Participation Checklist for consumers aims to assist consumers in making decisions about whether to participate in mental health research.

We prioritise research that is likely to enable significant improvements to outcomes for people with lived experience of mental health challenges.

  • Lived Experience-Led Does your research team include researchers or partners with lived experience or a lived experience advisory group?
  • Diversity Demonstrate how your project responds to and includes people with diverse, intersectional lived experience or is focused on improving outcomes for people from priority groups including First Nations Peoples, people from culturally and linguistically diverse communities, people with disabilities, neurodiverse people, and people with diverse genders and sexualities.
  • Capacity Show us how your project will build the research capacity of people with lived experience.
  • Reimbursement We prioritise research opportunities that appropriately remunerate people with lived experience for their involvement.
  • Support What support will you provide to people with lived experience who are involved in your research? Will peer support be available? (use our checklist to see if your project meets our criteria for lived experience engagement)
  • Ethics Has your research project been approved by a Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC)? Has it been assessed as low or high risk? Do you have an approved plan to manage any risks to people with lived experience who are involved in your research?
  • Innovation What gap in knowledge will your research address? What is novel about your methodological approach? How will your project contribute to lived experience-led innovation in research planning, methodologies, reporting, and/or knowledge translation?
  • Sharing outcomes Tell us how you plan to share the outcomes of your project with the people with lived experience who were involved, the mental health sector, and the broader community.
  • Impact How will your research make a difference to people with lived experience?
  • Acting on Royal Commission recommendations Does your project relate to recommendations of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System (2021)? Outline how your project will contribute to reform.

Please submit a request using the button above if you would like VMIAC to promote your research opportunity to people with lived experience through our networks, newsletter, consumer register, or website.

Check out our research resources before you submit your request:

To contact the VMIAC Research team research@vmiac.org.au

Have a research proposal you’d like VMIAC to support, partner in, or endorse?

Use the button below to submit your research proposal:

  • If you are a person with lived experience of mental health issues or challenges with a proposal for lived experience-led research
  • If you are a PhD student, researcher, research institution, or organisation
  • Want to promote your research project to involve people with lived experience
Submit a request

We welcome discussion about consumer principles, engaging consumers in research, and VMIAC support, partnership, and endorsement.

Read more in VMIAC’s Lived Experience-Led Research Strategy

To contact the VMIAC Research team research@vmiac.org.au

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