In 2009, NIHR Involve commissioned a consortium of three organisations – Shaping Our Lives, The Social Perspectives Network and the Centre for Citizen Involvement at Brunel University – to identify and produce a summary of examples of user controlled research. The goal of the project, itself user-controlled, The goal was to gain a better understanding of the nature of user controlled research projects concerning health and social care research in England to illustrate different approaches adopted and to highlight lessons learnt. The final review was not published when completed, but was made available by Shaping Our Lives in November 2012 due to increasing interest in user controlled research. While they have been superseded by other research and reports that have been produced since, these findings may still be of use and interest because they offer an additional snapshot of the history of user controlled research.