The Icelandic government has been a strong supporter of the principles of wellbeing economy for years. Their track record of public health innovation and holistic thinking is second to none. One of the key events and initiatives for this process has been the hosting of the annual Wellbeing Economy Forum in Reykjavik.

NWA participated in a lively and dedicated community of change makers working to implement wellbeing economy at national, regional, or local level – or for imbedding the mindset in research, investment programs, or other frameworks for societal progress.

We are really excited about the launch of a new project in NWA as part of the Social Innovation Initiative.

The project, “Innovative Solutions for Refugee Integration and Crisis Mitigation in EU Member States,” aims to address the humanitarian crisis caused by the war in Ukraine by facilitating the integration and social inclusion of refugees in EU Member States. The project runs from May 1, 2025 to April 30, 2026 and will achieve this through a multi-faceted approach that includes tailored vocational training, upskilling programs, and comprehensive support services for refugees.

In the project, NWA will focus on guidelines for integration of Ukrainians into European workplaces to support a wellbeing and prosperous future culture of integration.

The other participating organizations bring extensive expertise in social inclusion, a huge network of other European partners, and proven capacity in managing complex, multi-country projects. By leveraging social innovation and promoting collaboration among EU member states, the project seeks to build more resilient and inclusive societies.

The project will empower refugees by providing them with the necessary skills and support to rebuild their lives, contribute to their host communities, and mitigate the consequences of the crisis on Member States’ societies and public services. Given NWA membership of the Network of European Social Entrepreneurs and Innovators, this is particularly interesting to also scale and transfer for other countries and settings.

Looking the the future was the task at the HRH Symposium in Copenhagen April 28-30 at WHO Europe HQ in Copenhagen. NWA co-founder Lars Münter was invited to join both plenary panel, facilitate workshop on potential use of AI to reduce HCP burnout, and be a panelist in a breakout session. This combined presentation of our work with both the Nordic Health 2030 Movement, the Danish Life Science Cluster, the Strategic Partners Initiative on Data and Digital Health, the European Health Futures Forum, and also elements of the new MyHealth@MyHands Projec. In short – this was a great conference to understand mindsets and models.

The experience and the conference had a great energy building on a strong recognition of the need to transform the current method in new practices that benefits patients, staff, planet, and plans much better. Getting to that transformation is the tricky part.

Read more about the conference and find presentations here.

Rare diseases are becoming quite common. Or rather, research has now finally caught up and enabled us to build cures for a long range of genetic disorders and diseases, that would have been impossible to cure or treat just a few years ago. However, the production pipeline for these treatments is still missing, so the cost pr. treatment is high and the health systems have yet to embrace them all.

This was the background for the amazing visit to Denmark by Canadian entrepreneur and patient advocate Terry Pirovolakis that managed to do the impossible in record speed; he managed to find both funding and cure for his son Michael, suffering from SPG50. Having treated Michael, Terry has been on a quest to help other children across the world and also transform the pipeline for a series of other rare diseases.

NWA helped the Danish August Foundation to organise meetings with stakeholders in the Danish life science ecosystem – and also learned a lot about hope, perserverance, new potentials of collaboration between Canada and Denmark, and more.

Read more about the August Foundation here – and about the race against time to help Danish August from benefitting from a cure that are currently just waiting in a freezer. You can make a difference too by donating to the August Foundation. This will help fund this mission and add to the ability for gene therapy and personalised medicine to reach people in a just and timely manner.

The myHealth@myHands project will help address the growing need for a unified data ecosystem across the European Union.With 38 partners across 18 countries, the ambition is strong, the tech is ready, and the timing is right.

Currently, accessing medical records and digital health services can be a challenge, especially when travelling between different EU countries. The project aims to help streamline this process by making medical records and health data interoperable and universally accessible by 2030. In other words, finally unlocking health data for general use by people.

NWA participated in the meeting to both contribute to the overall product, and to present relevant ideas from previous experiences in self-care, digital health, citizens needs, and more.

Read more about the project here.

In the MentaStress project we had the a great meeting with the project partners in Copenhagen April 3-4. We discussed the key results from the end users surveys and the implications and needs to cover in the upcoming training material.

We also had a very insightful meeting at the Greater Copenhagen Fire Department to learn more about their history, transformational journey, and current landscape of psychosocial support. The Mentastress Project is working to build a stress management and mental health support programme for first responders with a new international training concept and material – this made this visit to the biggest and oldest fire department organisation in Europe extremely interesting.

Read more about the project here.

As part of our collaboration with EHFF, NWA was invited to participate in the D-A-CH Dialog in Vienna March 30-April 1, 2025.

With key topics and workshop, the possible experiences and pathways forward for health literacy strategies in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland was discussed in co-creative space for researchers, policy makers, foundations, and change makers to find ways to advance both data, health, and strategies across the three countries. And preferably across Europe too.

Read more about the event and programme here. Or a short summary by NWA co-founder Lars Münter here.

In a collaboration with European University Cyprus, the Cambridge Medical Academy, European Health Futures Forum, Digital Mental Health Consortium, ElevateHealth, and IE Open NWA organised a conference in Nicosia, Cyprus, March 20-21, 2025

The conference focused pathways to integrate Eastern and Western medical practices with modern technology and research. During the conference, the latest developments in collaboration was shared including research initiatives in Europe, product development in China, innovations from a global community, and the knowledge sharing framework of the One Health One Road Alliance.

Read more about programme and speakers.

NWA participated in the launch event for the new report for the wellbeing economy in Brussels March 4, 2025. In an event  organised by the Green European Foundation and the Institute for European Environmental Policy, the wider community of policy stakeholders presented recent data, analysis, and projections about environmental policies linked to wellbeing.

The event especially launched a political brief as a result of a one-year-long exchange within a knowledge community of more than 60 experts that maps the main challenges and provide recommendations to inspire European institutions in the delivery of their ambition to work towards the well-being of their people.

The report can be found  here – and is a way for the knowledge community project for a wellbeing economy in the EU aims to address this challenge by developing ideas and political proposals to put the EU’s ambition to “work towards an integrated framework for wellbeing” into practice.

Trust literacy, trust challenges, trust by design, and trust futures – and wonderful debate about philosophy, technology, and strategy for trust.

Find below recording of our webinar February 27, 2025 – or read the summary report here.