Co-designing research priorities in developmental neuroscience: A place-based participatory priority-setting study

Children and adolescents, the primary participants in developmental neuroscience research, are rarely consulted or included in the research design process. By neglecting their perspectives and needs, we risk limiting the relevance and effectiveness of translational research that may emerge from this work. Here, we report on a process of co-design with adolescents to inform the generation of a new population neuroimaging research programme. We employed a two-study community-based participatory approach and used mixed methods to identify the research priorities of this community. In the first study, 79 secondary school students from four schools were introduced to fundamental neuroscience concepts during five one-hour workshops. In groups, they then designed research studies, centred around topics they deemed important, and were asked to present their ideas through poster presentations, role playing as neuroscientists. Reflexive thematic analysis was conducted on these posters, extracting ten key themes. In the second study, 376 students from four different schools, ranked these ten themes in order of importance. Mental health and stress consistently emerged as the highest priorities. Further exploratory analysis revealed that the priority for exploring everyday routines and understanding anti-social behaviours varied across schools and age groups, while the importance of mental health varied significantly between genders. This work provides an illustration of how to implement place-based participatory approaches at the early stages of a developmental neuroscience research project to maximise inclusivity and potential downstream translation and impact.