During the last decades, the field of psychiatry has grown tremendously, but despite prevailing optimism we are faced with many challenges. A major challenge is that psychiatric services in many European countries are faced with increasing immigrant populations. Here there is a need to integrate knowledge hereof in the undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate training curriculum.

A main educational goal is to construct the core elements of a graduate training curriculum in psychiatry regarding cultural aspects to ensure high quality of psychiatric services via the creation of competent psychiatrists in all areas of Europe and promote the standard of training for cultural psychiatry by providing recommendations for training agreed upon by all stakeholders.

No explicit health policy has been formulated in many countries with respect to immigrants of which a large proportion has a traumatized background with a variety of problems linked to this.

Till now, the psychiatric curriculum in most areas comprises little training on cultural issues. On both under- and post-graduate level, the curriculum should comprise training in transcultural aspects of psychiatry.

With increased globalization there is a need to pay more attention to cultural aspects at all levels and develop strategies to increase the cultural competence of mental health professionals.

Consensus statements on psychiatric training and related issues related to cultural issues should be produced.

The paper will discuss the content of a culture sensitive curriculum and strategies to implement it.