Your study will benefit from collaborating with and taking on feedback from others; this is something that funders will deem essential. Consider:
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Colleagues who can provide input into your study or your application. If you have colleagues who have done similar projects or successfully applied for the funding stream you are interested in, you may benefit from their experience.
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Experts from other institutions, either academic or practitioner. They may be able to input into the study, be interested in helping with the study, or be able to help you to establish a research site in their area.
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Clinicians can be valuable in identifying possible issues in running the study in practice, or in recruiting patients. They may offer insights into the patient group, size of the patient population, and previous experience with the patient group or treatment. This may inform your research. Practising clinicians will be able to tell you how things currently work in practice, what data is routinely collected, and how it is collected and stored.
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Statisticians can advise on sample sizes, power calculations and advising on statistical analysis which you may wish to undertake. This is important for quantitative research as it will ensure that your research is sufficiently powered to obtain a meaningful result.
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Patient groups can help to inform whether your study is looking at issues that are important to patients. They may be able to identify possible recruitment issues by highlighting techniques that may influence patients to take part, or barriers that may discourage patients from taking part.
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The general public provide another perspective and useful insights – this group may also contribute as controls for your study.
You can read more about patient and public involvement here. The HRA considers patient and public involvement to be essential and has increased focus on this in recent years. Public involvement should be meaningful and real - so consider what you can involve patients and the public with and how their perspectives could be used to influence and guide your study.
All of these groups can provide input into the design phase but can also play a role in your study's steering group.
Research design expertise is provided by the Research Design Service which advises how to put together a feasible research project. This can help to avoid having to re-submit or submit amendments if some issues have not been considered before application.
NHS R&D offices can advise on the local area, practices which may wish to be involved in the study and have the required staff, facilities and equipment. They can also help with generating a research proposal and applying through the IRAS system.
NIHR Clinical Research Network supports clinical research delivery and can provide funding and staff to support delivery - it's a good idea to contact them early to determine what support may be available.