In the current health care system, patients are gaining a more active role. This patient-centered approach to medicine allows patients to be involved in their own medical decisions, which is also true in current burn care. As research aims to inform and optimize burn care and rehabilitation, we consider it essential to actively involve patients in burn research as well. 
From their personal experiences, burn survivors can offer a unique point of view which can be relevant in different phases of the research process, for instance preparation, execution, communication, evaluation, and, if possible, implementation. Many opportunities exist for burn survivors and/or their representatives (e.g. parents, partners, informal caregivers) to participate actively in the entire research process. From the literature, it is advised to involve them as early as possible, preferably from the start. 
Active involvement of burn survivors in research can, for example, lead to more relevant and suitable research questions, improved readability of patient information and informed consent documents, relevant measurement instruments, improved recruitment and response rates, enriched data analyses, and improved communication of results towards (other) burn survivors. The extent of involvement can vary from being informed (e.g. news letters, research presentations), to providing information (sharing experiences), providing advice and feedback, or even co-operating actively. Before burn survivors are asked to be involved, several questions have to be addressed. What do we aim to achieve with active involvement of burn survivors? Which knowledge is required from them (education, communication skills, experiences)? Which (financial) support can be offered? Furthermore, for successful collaboration it is really important to clearly inform burn survivors about their involvement and discuss mutual expectations. 
Until now, burn survivors were primarily actively involved in prioritizing burn research and judging grant applications. Now, we started to involve burn survivors from start to finish in our research.

3 - “Nothing about us, without us” - How to involve burn survivors in research?