25 November 2025 | Anna Woolman, Community Engagement and Knowledge Sharing Lead at PEDRI and Public Engagement and Communications Manager at Health Data Research UK
This time last year we revealed our re-brand and website to the world. It marked a new era of the Public Engagement in Data Research Initiative (PEDRI), one which focussed on telling our story and bringing more people along on the journey to working well with the public.
With the new look, we were able to expand how we approached PEDRI’s communication and engagement. The foundation of good communications is knowing your audience. If we were going to have any impact, we’d need to start there.
To create a sector-wide shift in how we do public engagement, we wanted to provide opportunities for people working with data and statistics – data researchers, statisticians, public engagement professionals, data managers and public members – to come together and explore what ‘good’ looked like.
Caption: New brand, new banners!
Creating an online community
Our first priority was building a solid LinkedIn following. We chose LinkedIn because this is where professionals, our target audience, connect. We also wanted to do it ‘well’. This meant not spreading ourselves too thin across multiple platforms.
This strategy helped us to experiment a little with different kinds of content while monitoring what worked well. As a result, we’ve steadily grown our LinkedIn following from 0 to over 1100 in the last year with a consistently above average engagement rate (meaning content strongly resonates with our followers). Not bad for a niche account!
Shouting about working well with the public on LinkedIn was all well and good. Crucially, we now had a platform to promote our growing body of work like the Good Practice Standards (GPS), PEDRI Pledge and a blog here and there. But something was missing.
Cue: Webinars
We trialled our first series of webinars in 2025. Across seven events, we wanted to bring the GPS to life by offering practical ways to do so. We started with an introduction to the Standards which attracted a whopping 267 attendees and almost 500 registrations – a clear sign that there was a real hunger for public engagement guidance in data and statistics.
Interest didn’t slow down. Our webinars consistently had registrations in the hundreds and we’re ending the year with a total of over 1009 attendees across all webinars. If this doesn’t demonstrate the desire for our sector to do good public engagement, then I don’t know what does!
Don’t miss the webinar recordings, which are available over on the Health Data Research UK (HDR UK) YouTube channel now:
- Prioritising equity in public engagement in data research | Julian Harrison (Centre for Ethnic Health Research) introduces Equality Impact Assessments
- Leading with empathy | Leila Neshat Mokadem (Equity Lighthouse) and Amy Hodgkinson (PEDRI) discuss trauma-informed approaches
- Using storytelling in conversations about data | Anna Feigenbaum (University of Glasgow) shares storytelling methods
- Exploring the power of co-production in data research | Jack Palmer (previously HDR UK Wales), Georgina Ferguson-Glover (Public Contributor), Michaela James (Swansea University), Akansha M Naraindas (ADRC NI) and Katie Porter (PEDRI) share their experiences in co-production
- Effectively engaging minority ethnic communities in data research | Sunny Rohit, Krishna Patel and Gurpreet Grewal-Santini from the Centre for Ethnic Health Research explore approaches for working with new audiences
- Can we create a culture of public engagement in data research? (link coming soon) | Doreen Tembo (PEDRI), Jan Speechley (PEDRI Public Contributor), Jo Lam (University College London), Simon Denegri (Sense about Science), Shayda Kashef (ADR UK) and Helen Craig (Co-Production Collective, University College London) grapple with whether the data research sector can truly embody a culture of public engagement at all levels of an organisation
Caption: Our first webinar wasn’t recorded, but we did share reflections in a blog which included quote cards like Piotr’s.
Walking the talk
Beyond attendee numbers, we had lots of positive feedback about the webinars. This made us feel good. But we know that webinars are all talk – how could we support people to put their learnings into action? This is where our Resources Hub comes in.
Pre-dating the webinars and a key deliverable when developing our website, the Resources Hub has been growing steadily over the last year. It’s a one-stop-shop for tools and guidance that can help you to apply the GPS to your work. Used together, the GPS, Resources Hub and webinars are there to not only start, but maintain, a data professional’s journey to working well with the public.
You can also read up on our roundtables on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, public involvement in data access and Frontiers meeting on implementing the GPS.
Caption: Leila Neshat Mokadem (right) spoke in our webinars and at the Good Practice Standards Frontiers meeting (pictured). Our events have helped connect us with a range of people leading the way in inclusive public engagement.
Taking it further
We’re excited by the community we’ve built over the last year. We want to continue developing our offer so this community can grow and thrive, and hopefully do some good public engagement in the process.
Looking to 2026, we’re not getting complacent. We’ve created some solid foundations and want to build on this by exploring new online event formats and ways to showcase people walking the talk.
Importantly, we’ll also share progress and learnings from our current projects (another link coming soon), Young voices in cancer data research, Learning and development and From Standards to Impact, that we kicked off this year, funded by Cancer Research UK, DARE UK (Data and Analytics Research Environments) and Health Data Research UK.
But for now, a big thank you
Fundamentally, PEDRI is a partnership. We could not have gotten to this point without the continued support of our partners, working groups and committed and inspiring community. Thank you to everyone who has liked a post, followed our accounts, read a bulletin, attended a webinar, told a colleague about us… the list goes on.
If you have any suggestions for topics that you’d like to see us cover, get in touch at contact@pedri.org.uk
