Dear Friends and Colleagues,

The Research Steering Committee of the European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC) was established in 1997. Areas of special interest, such as pain assessment tools, management of opioid side effects, the use of corticosteroids or anxiety and depression in palliative care have been discussed by the committee in a series of workshops. Recommendations from these workshops are being prepared for publication. The Research Steering Committee has decided that in addition to the biennial European EAPC Congress, a meeting, especially focused on research in palliative care is necessary, to spread information about research activities and invite health care professionals to participate in discussions on research issues.
This congress intends to provide training for researches, but also give an overview on ongoing research projects, as well as recommendations for clinical practice. We hope to include health care professionals involved or wishing to get involved in research in palliative care from all European countries. In addition, we hope that palliative care specialists from eastern European and the Scandinavian countries will participate in larger numbers due to the central location of the congress site.
Palliative Medicine is currently a focus of interest in Germany. The first chair in palliative medicine was recently established in Bonn and will be followed soon by another one in Cologne.

We realise that participants may have different expectations regarding the congress, as some will be more interested in information about new developments and recommendations for clinical practice. This should not lead away from the main target of the congress which is to involve professionals in research and establish communication between those already implicated. The programme will be divided in three arms:

• Research and Recommendations will contain reviews on selected topics of interest and provide guidelines from consensus groups.
• How to research will provide training workshops and exemplary trial designs for physicians, nurses and other professionals with little or no experience in research.
• How to evaluate will provide more advanced training, including topics on evidence-based medicine as well as areas of non-drug research such as research in quality improvement.

A refresher course will be available the day before the congress with lectures on the state of the art in palliative medicine.
I hope that the congress will give an impulse to research in palliative care in Europe. Come to Berlin and participate actively in this task !

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