In her article “Fair foundations: ensuring epistemic justice in neurodiversity research and practice”, Ludmila Praslova describes how training, science and lived practice can take neurodivergent knowledge into account. Epistemic justice, in this context, means recognising neurodivergent people as knowers. Praslova formulates concrete criteria for their participation. Which literature forms the foundation? Which researchers are invited as teachers? Who develops and reviews the materials? And how is the work of those involved recognised? This post asks what that means for pharmaceutical education.
What epistemic justice means
Miranda Fricker described epistemic injustice in 2007 as a wrong done to a person “in their capacity as a knower”. What matters is the influence of prejudice and social power relations on this process. Fricker distinguishes two forms:
Testimonial injustice arises when statements are devalued because of prejudice against a person’s social identity. This affects expert statements as much as reports of personal experience.
Hermeneutical injustice arises when people are unevenly involved in developing society’s shared interpretive resources. As a result, concepts and means of understanding may be missing that would be needed to make sense of their own significant experiences and communicate them to others.
Praslova transfers these considerations to neurodiversity research and practice and proposes a further form: appropriative injustice.
Appropriative injustice, according to Praslova, occurs when knowledge is taken from a community without adequately acknowledging authorship, the work performed, and the benefits. Terms and concepts flow into publications or consulting services while the people who developed them receive little recognition.
For pharmaceutical education, this concerns the selection and contextualisation of knowledge as much as collaboration with researchers. Their contributions must be engaged with on their merits and attributed in a traceable way.
Pharmaceutical evidence and conflicts of interest
Praslova also addresses pharmaceutical knowledge production. She points to Snellman et al. (2023), who describe incompletely disclosed financial conflicts of interest in systematic reviews of methylphenidate for ADHD, and to Sismondo’s analysis of epistemic corruption (2021) in pharmaceutical research. For pharmaceutical education, this also concerns the critical appraisal of the evidence used: how is knowledge produced, which interests are at work, and which perspectives are taken into account?
Conflicts of interest and methodological quality must be examined separately. Snellman’s study does not show a straightforward relationship whereby reviews with financial conflicts of interest are systematically of lower methodological quality.
What changes Praslova proposes
Praslova orders her recommendations along the path from training through research and publication to practical application. For pharmaceutical education, concrete guidelines can be derived that describe content, collaboration and delivery.
Selecting content and literature
Praslova recommends including the scholarly work of neurodivergent researchers in required reading. Their research questions, methods and findings would then shape how the field is presented academically.
Involving researchers and teachers
Praslova suggests involving neurodivergent scientists, practitioners and advocates as guest lecturers and on examination and thesis committees. What matters is their respective expertise. They should not have to stand in as representatives of an entire community.
Transferred to pharmacy education, continuing professional development and advanced training, this means considering lecturers’ research and fields of work when selecting them. Contributions might deal, for example, with health services research or organisational design. A neurodivergent person need speak neither exclusively about their own life story nor cover the experiences of all neurodivergent people. For universities, the recommendation also concerns their academic involvement in supervision and examinations; for continuing-education providers, for example, assembling a programme or developing an event together.
Developing and reviewing concepts and materials
Participatory research methods should likewise be taught. According to Praslova, important decisions are made before data collection even begins: in choosing a research question, its theoretical framing, and determining whom the results are to serve. She recommends involving people early, as co-researchers or in adequately resourced advisory boards. In addition, differences between scientific interpretation and the community’s self-understanding should be explicitly examined.
For the development of teaching materials, it follows that substantive collaboration should begin before learning objectives and slides are finalised. Contributors can then still influence which problems are addressed and which explanations are conveyed. A final request for review opens up that scope only if fundamental changes remain genuinely possible.
Praslova also addresses her recommendations to journal editors: reviewer guidelines should require reviewers to check whether community work is considered, terms are used appropriately, and contributions are correctly attributed. Neurodivergent researchers should have enough influence in editorial boards to help shape reviewing culture. Methodological rigour and the inclusion of community knowledge are, for her, compatible with each other.
Corresponding review questions could also help in the subject-matter review of continuing-education materials: which sources support a claim? Are different viewpoints presented in a comprehensible way? Do the limitations and uncertainties of the research survive simplification for teaching? This is about additional care, not about accepting scientific claims unexamined because of their authors’ identity.
Recognising contributions and compensating work
Praslova describes an additional burden on neurodivergent researchers: alongside their own scientific work, they are expected to explain foundations to others and correct problematic representations. She regards this as particularly problematic when the work remains unpaid and its results are subsequently credited to others alone. Her recommendations therefore also concern the distribution of recognition, influence and resources.
For educational programmes, it would be important to clarify early what contribution is being requested: a talk, joint design, a subject-matter review, or an extensive revision. This includes agreements on remuneration, attribution and, where appropriate, co-authorship corresponding to the contribution made. Where existing knowledge is used, its provenance must remain traceable in slides, handouts and other accompanying materials.
Sharing knowledge accessibly
Praslova calls for findings to be provided in formats that are accessible and usable for the communities involved. She names plain-language summaries, events and practice guides. The benefit for the community should be considered at the planning stage.
Pharmaceutical education programmes can contribute by conveying research in a comprehensible way and making suitable materials accessible. Accessible presentation should preserve the origin and the limits of the findings. Whether the materials are actually useful to the people they address can, in turn, be checked with them. That feedback can feed into revising the programme.
The measures at a glance
The following checklist brings together Praslova’s recommendations and their transfer to pharmaceutical education programmes:
- Include the work of neurodivergent researchers as foundational literature.
- Involve neurodivergent researchers and practitioners in teaching and committees according to their subject-matter expertise.
- Teach participatory research methods.
- Consider community priorities when setting topics and learning objectives.
- Involve contributors early in the design, review and revision, and give them real influence.
- Examine differences between scientific interpretation and community self-understanding.
- Review materials for sources, language, conflicts of interest and limits of claims.
- Agree tasks, recognition, remuneration and, where appropriate, co-authorship early.
- Make the provenance of terms and concepts visible in slides and handouts too.
- Share findings accessibly, check their usefulness together, and feed feedback into revisions.
The article is a perspective piece. Praslova grounds her proposals in research and ethical principles; not every individual measure has been empirically tested for effectiveness. She understands the recommendations as a complement to existing scientific quality procedures. The same applies to the transfer to pharmaceutical education proposed here: it is a starting point for designing and reviewing programmes.
Collaboration and contributions
This post is a starting point, not a conclusion. Comments, additions and corrections are expressly welcome — as is collaboration on the transfer to pharmaceutical education, for example with your own contributions from practice, research or continuing education. A public repository on Codeberg for working on it together is in preparation; until then (and beyond), you can reach me at sina@sinarampe.de.
Original and German working translation
Ludmila Praslova’s English original is openly accessible. The complete German working translation as a PDF complements this post. It also contains the original’s bibliography and a glossary. The translation is an unauthorised working version; the English original is authoritative.
Conceptual foundation: Miranda Fricker (2007), Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford University Press, especially the introduction, pp. 1 and 4–7.
Praslova’s original article was published in 2026 in Frontiers in Psychology, volume 17, article 1826790, and is licensed CC BY. This post paraphrases its contents and adds a framing for pharmaceutical education.