AHRA Health Research Hub

Co-designing a digital hub to strengthen consumer and community involvement in health research

  • Investigators

      • Associate Professor Leah Heiss, Monash University
      • Ashley Ng, Monash Centre for Health Research and Implementation (MCHRI)
      • Susanne Baker, Monash Centre for Health Research and Implementation (MCHRI)
      • Cathie Pigott, Monash Centre for Health Research and Implementation (MCHRI)
      • Associate Professor Alan Dorin, Monash University Faculty of IT

  • Co-investigators

      • Hatoun Ibrahim, Monash University

  • Partner organisation

    • Monash Centre for Health Research and Implementation (MCHRI)
    • Australian Health Research Alliance
    • Western Australia Health Translation Network

  • Funded by

    • Medical Research Future Fund

  • Undertaken within

“I would like it to be a dual perspective. You'd have both people. You'd have consumers talking about why it's important to them and then you'd have researchers talking about why it's important to them and why together it makes so much sense.”

Workshop participant

The Health Research Hub is an innovative, interactive, and dynamic digital platform co-designed to provide centralised, up-to-date resources and opportunities to connect, share, and learn with others working in consumer and community involvement in medical research (CCI) nationally. Launched nationally in mid-2025, the Hub builds on insights gathered through extensive stakeholder engagement and aims to address fundamental challenges in embedding CCI at individual and system levels.

In 2024, 287 consumers, researchers, and clinicians participated in a national survey to identify barriers and enablers and understand the attitudes and behaviours that influence the adoption of CCI. 70 interviews were conducted with stakeholders in Research Translation Centres, funding bodies, health services, researchers, consumers, and community organisations.

Guided by the survey and interview findings, MADA researchers led a collaborative co-design process to understand the needs of clinicians, researchers and consumers in relation to the Hub and to prototype and test user experience (UX) design approaches to inform the technology development process.

The work involved:

  • 4 co-design workshops with clinicians, consumers and researchers to understand needs and preferences for the Health research Hub.
  • Development of UX design approaches that were tested with diverse stakeholders
  • Development of a clickable prototype that was tested with stakeholders.
  • Creation of fictional personas to explore diverse user perspectives.
  • Individual consultations to refine the design and content further.