It’s important to define what your organisation means by PPI. It is helpful to view the different ways of involving people in research as a spectrum. Your strategy should make it clear that while participation of patients in research studies and the engagement of patients/the public through the imparting of information are very useful, they are different from PPI. While early activities might usefully focus on engagement, the strategy should encourage your organisation to strive for true involvement. The Irish Health Research Forum, a partnership of organisations and stakeholders that aims to influence health research in Ireland, has described PPI as: occurring when individuals meaningfully and actively collaborate in the governance, priority setting, and conduct of research, as well as in summarizing, distributing, sharing, and applying its resulting knowledge. You might also find it useful to borrow the INVOLVE definition of PPI at www.invo.org.uk: PPI is research carried out ‘with’ or ‘by’ patients/members of the public rather than ‘to’, ‘about’ or ‘for’ them.