Advancing Research Alongside Patient Partners: Next-Generation Best Practices for Effective Collaboration in Health Research.

Ovarian Cancer Canada's Patient Partners in Research (PPiR) is a national volunteer-based program that trains and connects individuals with lived ovarian cancer (OC) experience to diverse research opportunities, to maximize the clinical relevance and real-life impact of OC research in Canada. A steadily increasing demand for patient partners to be involved as research team members and decision-makers led us to co-develop with the PPiR team a series of "best practices" for researcher-patient partnerships. This framework formalizes our evolving approach to patient engagement and begins to address challenges that can arise in research settings focused on less commonly diagnosed yet significant and fatal diseases such as OC: (1) Start early.