RAPPORT: Developing a Rapid AI-based Policy Probing and Observational Research Tool

24th February 2023 There has been well publicised problems with reproducible and transparent reporting from observational data based research studies. This is a particular issue once machine learning gets involved, come due to the complexity. Many of the studies that are published would be difficult to reproduce, even by the research team themselves. Therefore today we had a workshop with two lived experience expert researchers, an additional lived experience expert and myself. Together we went through the draft reporting guidance we have been creating for targeted learning studies. This was a very useful exercise and helped harness lay researcher and lived experience into the guidance. This was important not just for making plans of analysis and protocols available publicly before analysis starts. It was also important in thinking about how results are reported and disseminated and the role of lived experience experts in this process. These guidelines were intended to build on s

 7th February 2023 Last week Wellcome/Social Finance hosted two afternoons of "Show and Tell". This gave teams participating in the Mental Health Data Prize to share their progress and experience of the "Discovery Phase". The presentations were very diverse and each brought interesting aspects and insights to the fore. Some of the presentations, including ours, focussed on the results of novel analyses performed. Others placed more emphasis and spent more timeshow casing what the eventual digital tool would look like. There was plenty of lively discussion, ranging from talking about technical issues, to broader discussions about how to most effectively incorporate lived experience into the projects. Many of the challenges mentioned were shared by most, if not all of the teams. The most common theme mentioned was the very short timescale for each stage of the project. This made staffing the projects, which is needed to convert funding into output, challenging. Howeve