Reach the peopleyour study is looking for.
Saena connects your study with participants through patient communities, plain-language listings and structured pre-screening – so you spend less time on outreach and more on the research.
The Problem
Recruitment is where good studies stall.
How?
Why?
Fragmented reach.
Recruitment of potential participants is spread across university networks, mailing lists, referrals, social media and community organisations.
Difficult discovery.
Potential participants have no obvious place to find studies that might be relevant to them.
Quiet cost?
Sample representativeness.
Recruitment dependent on existing networks tends to find the people who are easiest to reach, leaving others underrepresented.
References
- 1.Walters, S. J., et al. (2017). Recruitment and retention of participants in randomised controlled trials. BMJ Open, 7(3), e015276. PubMed Central.
- 2.Speich, B., et al. (2025). Nonregistration, discontinuation and nonpublication of randomized trials. JAMA Network Open, 8(9), e2524440. PubMed.
Our solution
What Saena does
01
Access to communities, not just individuals.
We work directly with Swiss patient organisations and advocacy groups to connect studies with communities that are already engaged and organised – including people that can be difficult to reach through clinical channels alone.
02
Listings participants can act on.
We help you turn your inclusion criteria and protocol summary into clear, accessible language that potential participants can understand and assess for themselves. That means fewer ineligible enquiries reaching your study team.
03
Structured pre-screening.
Participants see eligibility information up front and can answer key questions before they contact you, helping you focus on enquiries that are more likely to qualify.
04
Retention, not just enrolment.
Recruitment is only the beginning. Clear expectations, informed participants and meaningful communication throughout the study can support a better participant experience and help studies retain the people they enrol.
05
Support for your PPI obligations.
Patient and public involvement is increasingly a requirement of how research is funded, designed and evaluated. Saena helps bring participant involvement into the workflow from the beginning, rather than treating it as a section to write at the end.
06
Research ideas from the people you want to serve.
Saena gives people a place to share the questions, problems and gaps they think research should address. Researchers can discover what matters to potential participants before deciding what to study, helping them identify relevant research opportunities and build projects around real-world needs.
How it works
Tell us about your study – design, population, timeline and what participation involves.
We help you make it understandable. We turn the study information into clear, accessible language that participants can assess for themselves.
We put it in front of the right communities. Your listing goes to the communities where relevant participants are already engaged.
Interested participants come through one channel. People who are interested and meet your initial screening criteria can contact your study team directly.
Close the loop. When the study ends, a short, plain-language summary of the results goes back to the people who took part.
What we ask of you
Five commitments to participants
Saena is built on a simple principle: if we ask people to give their time, data and trust to research, they deserve to know what they're agreeing to and what happens next.
Partner studies commit to five things:
Be honest about the time. Include screening, travel, appointments, follow-up and anything else participants will be asked to do.
Be transparent about compensation. Say what is covered, what isn't, and when payment or reimbursement happens.
Explain the study clearly. Provide a plain-language summary of what the study is about, what taking part involves, what data you'll collect, why you need it, and what you'll do with it. We'll help you write it.
Close the loop. Commit to sharing a plain-language summary of the results with participants when the study ends.
Design for accessibility. Accessibility should be considered at the design stage, not at the door – what adjustments you can offer, and what you can't.
Underneath all five commitments is a single idea:
Participation is more than providing data.
The people in your study are partners, not data sources. They give you their time, trust, and perspective – usually with no direct benefit to themselves. Taking that seriously should shape the way research asks them to participate.
Where we are right now
Currently in co-design, piloting in Zurich.
Saena is being developed with research groups at UZH and ETH Zurich and with Swiss patient organisations, supported by the ETH Student Project House and the UZH Innovation Hub.
Meet the people and organisations behind Saena
We’re now looking for a small number of studies to pilot with. If you’re planning recruitment within the next six months, we’d like to talk.
Get involved
Help us pilot Saena. Recruiting soon? We’ll work through your study listing with you and support the recruitment process at no cost during the pilot phase.
Share your recruitment numbers. We’re mapping what recruitment actually costs in practice. If you would like to help, reach out to us so we can share a short survey with you.
Stay informed. Get occasional updates as Saena develops. No more than a few times a year.
Or reach out directly
contact@wearesaena.ch