Jan Geissler, Founder and CEO of Patvocates, is co-author of an article titled “Seven Actions Towards Advancing Patient Authorship and Collaboration in Peer-Reviewed Publications” published on July.2, 2025 on The Patient. In a post for LinkedIn Jan says that patients and patient advocates are often missing from the author lists of scientific publications, even if they have contributed with personal and professional insights to the design, conduct or interpretation of the research study. He says moving from “patient centricity” to “patient partnership” in publications and publication steering committees brings balance to authorship groups and adds value and contextualisation to publications.
The article offers a clear set of 7 recommendations for how to meaningfully involve patients as co-authors in scientific publications:
- A shift in conventional publication development processes and guidance from seeking ‘reasons for inclusion’ to ‘justification for exclusion’ of patient authors
- Reflection of equal eye level with progression from ‘patient-centricity’ towards ‘patient partnership’
- Holistic involvement of patients in publication steering committees
- Continued facilitation of patient and non-patient author partnerships to improve communication, understanding and equity of authorship groups
- Allow identification of patient co-authored publications with standardised use of a ‘patient author’ affiliation metatag
- Consideration and guidance around compensation of patient authors
- Extending the reach by considering open access
Read more at this link on the The Patient journal
Citation
Bharadia, T., Geissler, J., Robson, R. et al. Seven Actions Towards Advancing Patient Authorship and Collaboration in Peer-Reviewed Publications. Patient (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40271-025-00750-w