Footnotes

• Contributors TCT, NRu, and MAAL conceived of the paper. TCT coordinated drafting the paper. MAAL, NRu, NRa, and NC critically reviewed the manuscript. NRu, NRa and MAAL provided important perspectives as community member researchers. TCT acts as guarantor to this article.

• Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

• Disclaimer The views expressed here are those of the authors and are based on their working expeirence, positionality, and reflections.

• Competing interests None declared.

• Patient and public involvement statement While preparing this manuscript, we have collaborated actively with community scholar and citizen researchers at the community level from the very beginning. We had regular interactions with them to get their valuable and insightful inputs in shaping our reflections. Their involvement in this paper also provided a learning opportunity for them and facilitated them to gain insight on knowledge engagement. All authors support the greater community / citizen / public involvement in research in an equitable and an empowered manner.

• Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.