VOICE: Make your VOICE heard
VOICE is a citizen involvement organisation, network and digital platform. It uses the experience, ideas and insights of people to ensure that research and innovation focus' on the real needs and priorities of real people.
What is VOICE?
VOICE is a citizen-involvement organisation, network and digital platform. It uses the experience, ideas and insights of people to ensure that research and innovation focus on the needs and priorities of real people.
Embedded in The UK National Innovation Centre for Ageing, VOICE also works with businesses from concept to market. It identifies unmet needs and co-designs new, desirable products and services to support healthy, long lives.
What volunteering activity can I undertake with them?
VOICE is a platform where researchers can post opportunities for members to engage. From events through to public representation, there are a number of ways for you to get involved in helping to progress ageing research.
You can take part in as much or as little as you like, remotely or in person. It can fit in with your interests and schedule. Best of all, it’s free of charge to join the network.
What can I currently get involved with?
There are opportunities from institutions across the UK including:
- Improving mental wellbeing for people newly diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes, at Bournemouth University
- Early diagnosis of head and neck cancer – what helps and hinders?, at Newcastle University
A few current opportunities are highlighted below:
Volunteers needed for Newcastle University Summer School
Date and time: Tuesday 15 July 2025 | 15:00 - 17:00
Location: Newcastle University, Dame Margaret Barbour Building, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE2 4DR
About the volunteering opportunity
From Tuesday 15th- Friday 18th July Newcastle University Medical School is running a summer school for year 12 students from a wide range of backgrounds - all these students are interested in studying Medicine or Dentistry.
During the Summer School on the afternoon of Tuesday 15th July we are running a "Community Project" session - and for this we need volunteers to come and talk to the students!
For the project, we would like the students to have different people and “communities” to talk to, to help them plan and develop a project to improve the city of Newcastle to encourage more physical activity, and to improve mental and physical health. We will also have speakers from the Health Innovation Neighbourhood and the dental school and local charity Rise, to talk about the work they do in the community.
We are hoping to have volunteers who can come and chat to the students to help inform them to develop their ideas and their project - this will be on the afternoon of Tuesday 15th July, exact timings TBC. Refreshments and lunch will be provided.
No experience required - just a willingness to talk to 16-18 year old students about your life experience!
Seven days of auditory training to improve daily life speech-in-noise perception
About this study
The purpose of this study is to determine if training auditory sound discrimination abilities, such as identifying subtle differences in sounds, can improve speech in noise perception.
Understanding speech in noisy environments can be challenging for many individuals. Even a significant portion of normal-hearing listeners may experience difficulty in adverse listening conditions. In this study, we aim to develop a training programme that could help individuals seeking solutions for speech comprehension difficulties in such environments.
What will happen if I take part?
Part 1
You will be invited to the Auditory Cognition lab on the ground floor of the Newcastle Medical School, where you will be required to take some tests and bring a personal device (e.g. laptop).
Firstly, you will be asked to take a hearing test. You will then be asked to take a behavioural test, where there will be 4 computerised tasks with different sounds. Two of these tasks will also include the use of an eye tracker. An eye tracker is a device that allows us to monitor your eye responses to the sounds being played. The entire experiment should take about 2 hours.
Following this, the researchers will help you download the training software onto your device, as this is what you will be using each day for 20 minutes for the next week to complete the training programme. This will include a behavioural test, where there will be 2 computerised tasks with different sounds. We do highly advise that training should be completed in an environment with minimal distraction and noise to ensure optimum attention is directed toward the tasks.
Part 2
After the week of training, you will be invited back to the Auditory Cognition Lab, where you will repeat the same set of tests completed during the initial visit. Once all stages are completed in full (baseline test / training / outcome test) you will be given £50 amazon voucher. Additionally, a £1 bonus will be awarded for each day performance was of a high standard during your training.
Are there any inclusion criteria?
Please note our inclusion criteria listed below:
- You are aged 18-70
- You are a native English speaker
- You have a Windows laptop that you can bring to the first session to install the training app we developed.
- You can read the screen from 0.5 meters away from the computer without glasses (this is required for the eye tracker).
- You have no history of diagnosed hearing disorders (e.g. you have no worse than mild hearing loss, tinnitus).
- You have no history of diagnosed cognitive disorders.
- You are not currently taking any psychotropic drugs.
Closing date and time: Thursday 31 July 2025, 17:00
Help develop a measure of camouflaging / masking / passing / code switching
What is the study about?
Camouflaging / masking / code switching / passing describes ways that people change their behaviour to fit in with the majority population. This is well researched in autistic people, but measures aren't designed for other groups (such as racially minoritised), or for capturing camouflaging in multiple minority groups. This study involves creating a new questionnaire for camouflaging that works across groups.
In the future, this questionnaire will be used to help understand how camouflaging impacts mental health.
What will I be asked to do?
Complete an online survey that will take around 30 minutes.
Who can take part?
In order to take part, you must be over 18 years and be able to provide informed consent.
Participants should be comfortable with written English.
We are particularly interested in hearing from autistic / LGBTQ+ / racially minoritised individuals.
Anyone 18+ years can take part, even if you do not identify with any / all of these groups.
Ethical approval
This study has received ethical approval from Newcastle University Faculty of Medical Sciences Ethics Committee (reference: 3022_56881).
Closing date and time: Wednesday 31 December 2025 | 22:00
Reward: Participants who complete the study will be invited to enter a prize draw for one of twenty £10 vouchers.