Rafael Zegarra-Parodi, Centre Européen d' Enseignement Supérieur de l'Ostéopathie (CEESO), France

Introducing more evidence-based data into the osteopathic curriculum is a challenge for European institutions involved in active university partnerships. The shift from experts’ opinions to evidence-oriented training in osteopathy should rely on high quality peer-reviewed and published papers. A recent survey showed that few national institutions are responsible for conducting and promoting osteopathic research in Europe. This means that the greatest contribution towards this task comes from our students and their work during their final year dissertations (30 ECTS for a Master programme). Over the last couple of years, CEESO has developed opportunities for students to design simple clinical (clinical case description, osteopathic test reliability, osteopathic techniques effects) and epidemiological (prevalence of somatic dysfunctions) studies that could easily form part of their final year dissertations. We focused on this crucial information which is often overlooked, in order to provide high quality randomised clinical studies in the future. Valuable cooperation between European osteopathic institutions could be built on this experience.