Participation (i.e.patient involvement) is increasingly a requirement for research funding. This is also the case in the funding scheme of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research for the building of six practice-based research networks (PBRN) in family medicine in Germany. Within our PBRN SaxoForN we developed several formats to foster participation of family physicians, medical assistants and patients in the development of our network structures and in research projects. Our participation concept aims to 1) build a network structure that fits the needs and possibilities of our research practices, 2) expand the practicability of research projects by generating knowl-edge that is useful in care processes from the perspective of family physicians, medical assistants and patients and 3) to provide researchers with handy and ready-to-use resources for patient involvement and participation. This article aims to present the participation concept of SaxoForN. We want to contribute to the discussion on participation in research in family medicine and in the development of PBRNs. As participation is a requirement for all PBRNs in family medicine, ex-change between PBRNs on development and evaluation of formats to foster participation is useful and important.