When it comes to clinical research, the participation of the people being treated—the patients—usually ends by the time the study is submitted to a journal. A few U.K.-based publishers are now looking to change that. Last month, BioMed Central, an open-access publisher, announced that in 2015 it will launch the journal Research Involvement and Engagement, which will closely collaborate with patients in all aspects of its editorial processes, including peer review. The new journal aims to capture the contributions of non-academics to scientific research.

But will patients be able to review scientific papers that require technical knowledge? “We will select patient reviewers to look at a particular paper depending on their area of expertise, which often links to the [medical] experiences they have had,” Staniszewska asserts. (1)

Peer review is crucial to science. But up to now the subjects of science were not asked for their opinion. Simply because science tends to have… “objects” rather than subjects.

Humans slowly find their place in the cosmos.

A cosmos full of life.
No objects.
Just subjects.
In denial of themselves.
Dreaming of objects.
A world full of life and life only.
There can be no other way.
There can be no other science.
But the science of humans.
Stop analyzing objects.
And you will understand the Universe…