While the concept of patients as partners in clinical research is becoming increasingly prevalent, there is still room for improvement. The development and validation of partnership models to engage patients in the design and governance of clinical research programmes are still in the early stages, and approaches that can ensure substantial and effective patient contributions to research are needed. In this article, we describe the patient partnership model being developed at Geneva University Hospitals (HUG) to engage patients and their caregivers in the design of clinical research studies and to encourage research groups in their efforts to involve patients within their teams.