Joanna Crocker

I joined the department in February 2014 as a Research Fellow funded by the NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre (OxBRC). My work centres around evaluating and assessing the impact of patient and public involvement (PPI) in research. PPI is increasingly regarded as a vital component of medical and health research and can be a pre-requisite for obtaining research funding, but the evidence base for its benefits is currently weak. We need to develop more rigorous methods to capture fully whether, under what circumstances, and to what extent, PPI in research leads to better research and is ultimately beneficial to patients.

I lead the PIRRIST project, which aims to develop and evaluate a PPI intervention to enhance recruitment and retention in surgical trials. I have conducted a systematic review of the impact of PPI on recruitment and retention of participants in clinical trials, a mixed methods study evaluating a James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnership, and a qualitative study of PPI contributors’ views on the value and impact of PPI in research – part of the HealthTalk project about PPI in research. I also contributed to the METHODICAL study, which generated research priorities for PPI in clinical trials.

I was involved in developing a PPI strategy for the department and NIHR CLAHRC Oxford, and am an ongoing member of the MRC Network of Hubs for Trials Methodology Research - Recruitment Working Group. I am also involved in teaching at the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine and lead the department's Complex Interventions Journal Club. I am interested in supervising doctoral / DPhil students.

Previously, I completed a Masters in Biochemistry at the University of Oxford and a PhD in Medicine at Cardiff University, and carried out post-doctoral research at the UCL Institute of Child Health.