Research aims and priorities

As a professional association Osteopathy Australia is engaged in a diverse range of activities from membership information and continuing education to policy development and lobbying. All of the organisation's activities have an overarching goal of enhancing and promoting the profession.

A set of clear research priorities helps inform the implementation of our research policies and future research funding. It also ensures that the research supported by us is consistent with the broader aims of Osteopathy Australia’s Strategic Plan and supports the place of osteopathy in higher education and healthcare.

Research Aims

To facilitate research that benefits osteopathy by:

• Enhancing and promoting the profession
• Embracing the complex reality of osteopathic practice
• Promoting rigorous and critical examination of practice
• Building understanding of osteopathy’s role and place in the health system
• Developing research maturity within practitioners, researchers, and academics
• Engaging osteopaths in research outcomes that would benefit practice, safety and/or effectiveness to facilitate best practice

Additionally, Osteopathy Australia will invest in research capacity building by:

• Reviewing effective models of research engagement from other countries
• Encouraging better collaboration between researchers and practitioners
• Developing guidelines, training or workshops to build practitioner engagement with knowledge and skills in research
• Investigating how osteopaths may commence a career pathway in research to and engaging the osteopathic community to increase awareness of opportunities

Research Priorities

Broad research priorities

• Contemporary osteopathic practice - examines facets of professional, contemporary osteopathic practice in the healthcare systems
• Treatment – examines clinical safety and effectiveness of osteopathic practice with approaches that respect the principles and philosophies underpinning osteopathy.
• Clinical outcomes of osteopathic practice – what are measurable changes in health, wellness or quality of life that result from osteopathic care
• Osteopathy in the Australian health care system – understanding the osteopathy workforce, its role and place within contemporary Australian health care
• Consumers, consumption and use – examines the use of osteopathy by healthcare consumers and the reasons why they attend

Osteopathy Australia will also investigate options to directly support research within our priority areas by (but not limited to):

• Providing promotion and awareness-raising of osteopathic research being completed within Australia and elsewhere
• Providing direct funding for research projects with osteopath involvement
• Calling for grant submissions
• Commissioning research projects
• Prioritising projects that use the infrastructure of ORION
• Working collaboratively with others on projects and funding
• Participating to support externally competitive funding applications (e.g., ARC Funding)

Additionally, we will work with key stakeholders and the community to encourage participation in:

• Lodging abstracts and applications to a structured and competitive Osteopathy Australia grants scheme
• Fostering research leadership in priority areas or supporting budding researchers
• Investigate options that increase supervision opportunities to involve osteopathy academics