PPIE Ideas Café

What are Ideas Cafés?

Ideas cafés are informal virtual sessions researchers and (potential) commercial partners can discuss their ideas and technologies with our public collaborators. It’s a chance to get feedback from public collaborators – to communicate ideas with a lay audience, and receive fresh, practical perspectives on your ideas from their lived experience.

These sessions are a great way to sense-check your work (is it really something that the public would benefit from?), improve communication of complex ideas, and start building meaningful involvement into your research or product development.

Who is it for?

• Researchers developing or exploring a new idea or technology
• Health and care innovators
• Anyone looking to apply for funding who would benefit from early public involvement
• Those new to public involvement that would like to learn from our collaborators lived experience

How the Meetings Work:

These cafés will be held on Zoom.

Each session is 40 minutes in duration. During this time, the researcher or commercial partner can present their health technology or research in a short 5-10 minute presentation. This can be verbal or supported with slides. This is then followed by open discussion and feedback. Feel free to bring specific questions if you have them, or use the session to gather general impressions.

Plain English is essential, our public collaborators are lay members with valuable lived experience, not technical experts.

These are not a substitute for ongoing public involvement, but they are a great place to start!

How to book your place:

To reserve a space, we have a list of 2026 dates below. Simply click on the preferred date/time and register to reserve a slot. A member of the PPIE team will then be in touch with further information and provide a Zoom link for the meeting.

• Wednesday 18^th March 14:00-15:30
• Tuesday 14^th April 10:00-11:30
• Thursday 28^th May 13:00-14:30
• Friday 12^th June 11:00-12:30
• Tuesday 28^th July 11:00-12:30
• Wednesday 19^th August 14:00-15:30
• Thursday 3^rd September 10:00-11:30
• Wednesday 21^st October 13:00-14:30
• Monday 23^rd November 12:00-13:30
• Wednesday 9^th December 10:00-11:30

To be notified when additional dates become available, please contact the Involvement Team at involvement@exeter.ac.uk.   

Cost and Payment:

We pay our public collaborators for their time and contribution. As such, there is a charge of £200 (inc. VAT) per 40-minute session.

Cancellation Policy:

If you are registered to attend one of our slots, but are no longer able to, you should provide notice 2 working days in advance of the meeting.

Please note: If the cancellation notice is not adhered to you will be charged.