The International Society for Emotion-Focused Therapy is a vibrant community of researchers, educators, coaches, trainers, and – of course – therapists.

The ISEFT 2025 conference in Bucharest was therefore a wonderful mix of practice, theory, exploration, and dialogue. NWA had the pleasure of both presenting our MentaStress project in a session on how to use Erasmus+ for knowledge sharing in EFT – and also conduct a workshop to develop new HR guidelines that integrates an emotional health literate approach to help integration of vulnerable groups – so amazing input for our ISRICM project also.

You can find a copy of the workshop report here. Or join our upcoming webinar September 4, 14 CET to contribute (stay tuned or send us a mail to get direct invite).

The ambitions of the JA PreventNCD project are huge; Finally being able to significantly build the policy frameworks and services that can fundamentally and radically reduce the impact of NCDs in Europe.  As part of these ambitions, the project is building the EU Consortium on NCD Prevention to act as a continuous, ambitious, and cross-sector advisory body for future public health policies in EU.

Recognizing the challenge for maintaining the long term focus on NCDs in a modern political landscape, the intent is to build a body of experts, institutions, and organisations that can help cover this gap. Following the first great meeting in Brussels last year, June 17-18 Lars Münter participated in the EU Polish Presidency event in Katowice to allow NWA help in the co-creation process among the partners – this was a rich experience of both exploring futures, using process design and thinking, and introducing a number of creative steps to support and increase the ideation during the workshops. Read more about the event here.

The goal is (initially) to build a framework of a future-fit structure for the Consortium that ensures trust, inclusion, impact, and sustainability. And of course to also lead to a powerful energy that can lead Europeans toward better health and EU towards a significantly reduced risk and burden from this challenge.

The International Foundation for Integrated Care is an amazing community for trying cross-sector collaboration and reinventing service design (while studying the process at the same time). NWA had the pleasure of presenting a poster at the 2025 conference event in Lisbon on building a Next Generation Digital Model to support a Salutogenic approach in community care (find it here also).

Co-authored with Eva Turk (UAS St. Pölten), Carina Dantas (SHINE 2Europe), Monika Knudsen Gullslett (Norwegian Centre for E-Health Research), and Gregor Muzak (ZOPS – Slovenian Patients Organisation), the paper focused on how to bridge the possibilities in a digital approach and lived experience with the organizational needs to integrate services.

The event was particularly relevant also in the light of the new MyHealth@MyHands project that intends to build a digital access tool for personal health data for at least 1 mio. Europeans.

The conference in Lisbon gathered hundreds of great experts – it will be a pleasure to participate and hope to reconnect with many in Birmingham in 2026.

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.

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.