Involving consumers and community

The MS Research Flagship has a well-established and dedicated consumer advisory committee (CAC) ensuring that consumer and community involvement (CCI) is at the heart of our program.

The committee partners with the scientific advisory committee and steering committee — both with consumer representation — to provide the governance structure for the Flagship. Importantly, members of the CAC provide ‘lived experience’ expertise to the various research projects of the Flagship.

Between 2019 and the end of 2025 the CAC provided nearly 2,000 hours of lived experience involvement across 39 different projects and attended 80 governance or networking meetings . The committee's involvement has:

• provided the lived experience perspectives that have improved research ideas and provided clarity on why the research is important to the community
• helped make the research more accessible through use of language that is easy to understand, positive and empowering
• helped shape the direction of research projects and provided researchers with new ideas and inspired our researchers to continue working towards a future without MS.

From 2019 to 2022 the average grant success rate of the MS Research Flagship increased from 29% to 67%. The average grant success rate for the Flagship (2019-2025) is >40%, demonstrating the Flagship's governance and CCI model has significantly improved MS research.