The MYRIAD Public Engagement Programme

In parallel to the MYRIAD trial, the research team ran a range of public engagement activities including interactive teenage brain workshops, a young researcher challenge, research and careers workshops, and young people focus groups.

The MYRIAD Young Researcher Challenge gave research participants the opportunity to design and shape the research process. Nearly 800 individual questions, covering a range of topics around wellbeing, were submitted by young people. The 15 most popular questions, as voted by more than 2000 young people, were included in a young researcher questionnaire alongside the MYRIAD trial questionnaires. Anonymised data from the selected questions was collected from almost 5000 study participants. The data is available for download, together with teacher and student resources and a series of videos about the research process, in the MYPAD resource pack (MYRIAD Young People’s Analysis of Data).

Our interactive workshop – The Teenage Brain – toured a number of the trial schools, introducing young people to the research tools used by scientists to investigate changes in the brain during the teenage years and their link to emotional and behavioural regulation.

The public engagement programme was funded by Wellcome. The project was awarded the University of Oxford Department of Psychiatry Public Engagement and Communications award 2019 and is a 2020 Falling Walls Finalist in the Science Engagement category.

Read our external evaluators report.