In a rather interesting development I have been contacted by a researcher who sits on a committee for the National Research Ethics Service, who may have identified an area of scientific research requiring drawings. The National Research Ethics Service is National Health Service, Health Research Authority department for “Protecting the rights, safety, dignity and well-being of research participants.  Facilitating and promoting ethical research that is of potential benefit to participants, science and society” (http://www.nres.nhs.uk).

The researcher showed me some past proposals submitted by other researchers who wished to conduct studies using patients. Unsurprisingly, these are large documents with dense text describing complicated experiments & populated with impenetrable jargon. For any proposal to be successful they must be able to be understood by lay members of the committee & the patients participating in the study.

There is a section of the proposal, the Participant Information Sheet, that describes the underlying science of the work, what the procedures the participant & samples will undergo & what the potential outcomes and the meanings or benefit of the research might be.

I thanked the researcher for their thoughts and time. I believe they have found a needy gap in the market for me to aim at & have provided plenty of subject matter for me work on in the year ahead. . .