Founded in 1936 by René Morice, J. Dupuis, and F. Buhour, the Société de Kinésithérapie quickly gained a large audience from practitioners seeking recognition.
In 1937, this pioneer society began publishing a journal named La Revue de Kinésithérapie, which served as a reference that disseminated up-to-date scientific knowledge. This initiative brought together a large number of practitioners—physiotherapists, masseurs, medical gymnasts, nurse-masseurs (qualified or not), and doctors—around the same practice: healing the body in pain through movement.
In 2003, the Société de Kinésithérapie became the Société Française de Kinésithérapie. In 2009, it was renamed the Société Française de Physiothérapie (SFP) to reflect the more globally prevalent name for the profession. Today, the SFP has more than 2000 members spread across various interest groups and partner associations representing the different fields of physiotherapy (geriatric, neurology, women’s health, public health, sport, musculoskeletal, amputee rehab, pediatric, etc.).
The SFP has ambitious objectives and expectations:
* Promote research in physiotherapy;
* Organize scientific meetings and congresses;
* Publish scientific documents;
* Editing books;
* Award grants and prizes for physiotherapy research;
* Collect, manage; and distribute professional documents;
* Coordinate and exchange work with national and international associations and equivalent structures
* Constitute a hub of physiotherapy resources and expertise for both primary and postgraduate education, as well as for professional, university, social, and other bodies.
To accomplish these goals and enhance clinicians’ level of practice and decision-making, the SFP has organized biannual congresses since 2007. It holds regular webinars and provides 20k euro grants for junior and senior researchers. Additionally, the SFP recently created the European Rehabilitation Journal. This journal is fully open access, and it hosts an international editorial board. The European Rehabilitation Journal was created with an OPEN SCIENCE mindset; its authors retain the copyrights to their publications. The journal will be an international vector for diffusing scientific knowledge in the rehabilitation field and will be hosted by an independent scientific society, the SFP.
The SFP is committed to high-quality scientific production. The SFP has previously collaborated with the Cochrane Foundation, and the opportunity to cement a partnership with Cochrane Rehabilitation is excellent news for the French and for the rehabilitation community. We share the same values and mission goals: enhance the quality of research and its reporting while supporting clinicians to empower those in need of rehabilitation care and improve their overall well-being.