Introduction

A very warm welcome to all delegates of the Annual Symposium on Complementary Health Care. Once again we are gathering for a full programme of keynote lectures, discussions, oral and poster presentations, plus workshops. We are very pleased to be able to present you with two new features in the programme this year.

For the first time we have devoted a full day entirely to issues relevant to paediatric CAM research. Sunita Vohra, who is Director of the Complementary & Alternative Research & Education Program at the Stollery Children’s Hospital, Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Alberta, and Director of the PedCAM Network, Canada, will chair an open panel of international paediatric CAM research leaders, who will share summaries of their initiatives and findings with conference attendees. Paediatric CAM research will also be showcased in oral and poster presentations.

Secondly, John Dent of the UK Complementary Therapists Association will chair a half-day CAM Practitioner Research Workshop aimed at CAM practitioners who wish to find out more about CAM research and how it is relevant to what they do. It will address issues such as why research is important, how to appraise research, and how research can benefit the practitioner. The keynote lecture on this day will be presented by Vinjar Fønnebø of the University of Tromsø, Norway, entitled ‘Experience of CAM practitioners and findings of CAM researchers – can the two worlds find common ground?’.

We are delighted to present another outstanding keynote speaker: Basil Roufogalis from the University of Sydney, Australia, who this year has been elected by an independent panel to give the 5th Varro Tyler Memorial Lecture, an annual series of lectures on herbal medicine sponsored by Dr Willmar Schwabe Pharmaceuticals, Germany.

As usual there will be a large number of oral and poster presentations covering a wide range of topics and providing an overview of current research in the field of CAM.

We wish you a pleasant stay in Exeter and we hope you enjoy the 14th Annual Symposium on Complementary Health Care.