EFP prizes for postgraduate research announced at general assembly

Four prizes for postgraduate research by students of the EFP-accredited postgraduate programmes in periodontology were announced at the EFP general assembly in Vienna on 26 March.

In pre-clinical and basic research, the first prize was given to Jean-Claude Imber of the University of Bern (Switzerland) for the paper “Pre-clinical evaluation of the effect of a volume-stable collagen matrix on periodontal regeneration in two-wall intrabony defects”, published in Journal of Clinical Periodontology, 2021; 48:560-569 https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpe.13426.

The second prize was awarded to María Martínez, of the Complutense University of Madrid (Spain) for “Periodontal diseases and depression: A pre-clinical in vivo study”, published in Journal Clinical of Periodontology 2021; 48:503-527 https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpe.13420.

The first prize for clinical research was awarded to Célien Eeekhout of Ghent University (Belgium) for “A multi-centre randomized controlled trial comparing connective tissue graft with collagen matrix to increase soft tissue thickness at the buccal aspect of single implants: 3-month results”, published in Journal of Clinical Periodontology 2021;48:1502-1515 https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpe.13560.

The second prize was won by Mario Romandi of the Complutense University of Madrid (Spain) for “Diagnosis of peri-implantitis in the absence of baseline data: A diagnostic accuracy study”, published in Clinical Oral Implants Research 2021;32:297-313 https://doi.org/10.1111/clr.13700.

The prizes were awarded by a jury comprising Phoebus Madianos (chair of the scientific affairs committee 2016-22), Andreas Stavropoulos (chair of the scientific affairs committee 2022-25), and Nikos Donos (member of the postgraduate education committee).

There were four applications for the pre-clinical/basic prize and 13 for the clinical prize. Phoebus Madianos said that the quality of submissions was high, covering a wide range of research fields. However, he noted that not all the 18 postgraduate programmes had made submissions and that some had submitted two publications for consideration.

The objective of this annual prize is to promote graduate research at the EFP-accredited programmes and it is open to all graduate students of the programmes. The research work must have been published in print between January and December of the year before the prize presentation in the Journal of Clinical Periodontology or in another English-language peer-reviewed scientific journal. The applicant must be the first or second author and the research should have been performed substantially in the country where the student has studied the postgraduate programme in periodontology.