In recent years, there has been a lot of dialogue about how user involvement in research is a good thing. Many research funders, both in the public and private sector, as well as service users, say that user involvement in research is necessary and that it’s not enough for service users to be merely regarded as research objects in the building of knowledge to inform policy and service provision. In this video, Shaping Our Lives Chair Peter Beresford satirically makes the point that this is all counterintuitive, and in fact user involvement in research and evaluation is a bad thing. Peter lays out the arguments for why user involvement is a good thing, before arguing (again, satirically) that the traditions of research mean that it cannot possibly progress from its status quo.