TrialUs: Building the Infrastructure for Community-Led Research
Seminar organised by Shaping Interfaces Between Science and the Public
- Date
- 28 September 2026
- Time
- 12:30 -16:00
- Location
- Oude Turfmarkt 145-147
- Room
- Library
TrialUs is a public-interest research platform designed for communities to identify research questions and create studies on the issues that matter to them. With the support of experienced researchers, communities are enabled in developing transparent, rigorous studies, from initial study design to analysis and publication.
While randomized trials are an important dimension of TrialUs, the platform does not exclusively focus on trials: it can support a range of methodologies suited to different questions, contexts and forms of knowledge. The seminar will introduce TrialUs as an infrastructure for community-led research and consider how public engagement can move beyond consultation towards shared agenda-setting, evidence production and learning, while complementing established academic research.
The discussion will seek audience input on:
- Governance: decision rights, accountability, transparency, institutional relationships and how communities share power rather than merely provide data;
- Ethics and rights: consent, privacy, safeguarding, inclusion, accessibility, fair recognition, risks of exploitation and benefit-sharing;
- TrialUs remits: which questions and methodologies belong within TrialUs, which require conventional review or specialist infrastructure, and how escalation should work.
Programme
| 12.30-13.00 | Lunch (IAS Common Room) Location event: IAS Library |
| 13.00-13.10 | Opening & Introduction |
| 13.10-13.50 |
TrialUs and public-interest research: presentation by Yoel Lubell and Sheila Varadan, followed by a short discussion in seminar format |
| 13.50-14.15 | Q&A and plenary discussion |
| 14.30-15.30 | Break-out group discussion – Questions of the day: (a) Can a public-interest platform such as TrialUs, sufficiently address scientific, governance and ethical issues so that communities can shape and conduct rigorous research using the methods best suited to their questions? (b) What oversight is needed, and what would meaningful benefit-sharing look like? |
| 15.30-16.00 | Reconnecting and wrap-up: reflections, priorities and next steps |
| 16.00-17.00 | Open space/co-working (optinal) |
Speakers
Yoel Lubell is Professor of Global Health at the University of Oxford and Senior Research Fellow at the Amsterdam Institute of Global Health and Development. He is a co-founder of TrialUs, developing public-interest research infrastructure that enables communities to turn shared questions into transparent, rigorous real-world trials.
Sheila Varadan is a co-founder of TrialUs and Assistant Professor of Children’s Rights and Global Health at Leiden University, in a joint appointment with the Department of Health and Child Law and the African Studies Centre Leiden. Her research examines global health and human rights, bringing expertise in rights-based participation, governance and ethical questions in research.