Press Release – Copenhagen, January 12, 2026
As part of the EU Social Innovation+ Initiative project ISRICM, the Nordic Wellbeing Academy and its European partners are happy to announce the new and fascinating webinar taking place February 24, 14.00 CET on social inclusion.

The webinar features the key experts Carina Dantas – SHINE 2 Europe and SHAFE Foundation, Eva Turk – UAS St. Pölten, and Lars Münter – Nordic Wellbeing Academy. As an integral part of the ISRICM project, the webinar will enable participants to learn more about key principles, tools, and indicators that help social inclusion become a valuable mechanism for the future of European workplaces.

“The value of diversity is the secret recipe for future workplaces and competitiveness” says Lars Münter and adds “Being able to better wield these principles in practice in HR organisations and in recruitment is a vital tool to unlock innovation, wellbeing, and resilience across the European labour market.”

The webinar is free of charge and registration can be done via the link below. Contact Lars Münter for further information.

Since 1973, World Hello Day has been an annual opportunity to bring people together in local events with global impact. Recently we got a challenge, however. The great entrepreneur for social action, Christian Altenius, invited us to also take part in the Hela Sverige säger HEJ! Swedish edition of the global action.

So rising to the challenge, this year we are building a local event in Sweden with an amazing local artist and therapist to enable an additional 10 people – strangers – (that’s the concept) to say hello to us.

Combining the insights and skills of Nina Sønderberg as psychotherapist with the equally great skills of yoga therapist (focusing on stress and trauma) Emma Pålsson, we aim to both greet 10 new people and be able to do our part in a global mission of connectedness.

Read more about World Hello Day here – or about the many additional activities in Sweden here. Want to join – well, hello there – consider registering via nina@wellbeingacademy.dk

As part of the ISRICM project, NWA is happy to present a full report on Guidelines for Integrating Refugees into Workplaces. This report is the result of extensive dialogue with HR professionals to build a next generation structure for empathy and social progress via workplaces.

The report will be followed with webinars and a training session for HR professionals – do contact us if you’re interesting in joining this unique learning experience.

In collaboration with the One Health One Road Alliance, Cambridge Medical Academy, European University Cyprus, European Health Futures Forum, and IE Open, the Nordic Wellbeing Academy is organising the Danish-Cypriot EU Policy Sessions – a series of health policy side sessions at the IMBMC 2025 in Nicosia, Cyprus – November 6-8.

The sessions will gather speakers and participants from a global network to discuss and develop new ideas. Meet:

• Adam Skali – Board Member, Institute for Human Centered Health Innovation, ES
• Anna Kudiyarova – Director of the Psychoanalytic Institute for Central Asia, KZ
• Belinda Lin – Hong Kong-Shenzhen Innovation and Technology Park China
• Bogi Eliasen – Executive Director, Movement Health Foundation, DK
• Carina Dantas – IHI ReADI, SHAFE Foundation, and SHINE 2Europe, PL
• Cris Scotter – Special Advisor, WHO Europe, UK
• Diana Arsovic – CEO, Danish Life Science Cluster, DK
• Dr Eva Turk – IHI IMPROVE, HTAi, and University of Applied Science St. Pölten, A
• Dr Ioannis Patrikios – Vice-dean European University Cyprus Medical School CY
• Dr Nina Fuller-Shavel – Director of the National Centre for Integrative Oncology, UK
• Dr Sotiris Themistokleous – Director of Strategic Development Center for Social Innovation CY
• Emma Rawson-Te Patu – President of the World Federation of Public Health Associations, NZ
• Jun (Helena) Li – CEO One Road One Health Medicine, China
• Lars Münter – International Director, Nordic Wellbeing Academy, DK
• MEP Michalis Hadjipantelas, CY
• Nina Sønderberg – National Director, Nordic Wellbeing Academy, DK
• Professor Karsten Kristiansen – Copenhagen University, DK
• Takis Kotis – CEO, Cambridge Medical Academy, GR
• Terry Pirovolakis – CEO, Elpida Technology, CA
• And about 50 other scientists, researchers, professor, experts, and changemakers in the bio-medical conference main tracks

Read more and register (free)

Collaborative creativity at its finest in Aalborg September 18th. NWA collaborated with EHFF to build a co-creative workshop with Natasha Azzopardi Muscat – Director of the Division of Country Health Polices and Systems WHO Europe, Charlotte Marchandise – Executive Director EUPHA, and Stella Goeschl – Young Action Group JA PreventNCD as the superpanelist powering the audience.

In 60 minutes, the audience got to find future strength, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that should be taken into account for a future strategy, and then our panelist used these to suggest four action items that they hoped the participants – and the Danish EU Presidency – would take up tomorrow to build a new pathway for change. These were voted on by the audience to create a shortlist of five action items for change.

Common Themes Across Speakers

• Burnout & well-being: urgent and systemic.
• Technology: potential but overhyped; must serve both patients and staff.
• Data: better workforce data is essential.
• Inclusion: young people, patients, and vulnerable groups must be part of decision-making.
• Public health: prevention and community-level work relieve pressure on hospitals.

Top 5 Action Points for EU Presidency Action

• Build KPIs for workforce well-being – measure and hold leaders accountable.
• Ensure technology validation – evaluate AI/innovation like medicines (safety, impact, cost-effectiveness).
• Stand up for people with science – evidence-based policies, not quick fixes.
• Inclusion of young people – systematically in panels, education, and policy.
• Stand up for communities – ensure public health and local engagement.

WHO Europe will discuss this further at conferences and events in 2025 and on. The themes will be a strong element of debate at European Public Health Conference 2025 in Helsinki (November), and JA PreventNCD will continue it’s work to tackle determinants, including at a conference in Denmark October 2025.

As part of the One Health One Road Alliance, NWA and EHFF will bring the issue into the Danish-Cypriot Policy Debates in Nicosia November 6-8 as the opportunity of bringing this issue from one EU Presidency to the next is vital. We hope to see many from Aalborg in Nicosia too.

Working in partnerships is one of the most rewarding, most needed, and most difficult endavours humans can do. Building a good relational strategy is a first step, but figuring out if the strategy works can be tricky. Or it used to be! Two new report created by the NWA and a consortium of experts for the Danish Life Science Cluster gives partnership builders, managers, and transformation agents a new tools to navigate this difficult task.

The two reports follows a first report issued earlier this year about the impact of the Danish Lighthouse Life Science. The “Foundation of the Danish Lighthouse Life Science” report describes the architecture behind this collaborative PPP with 400+ members. And in “A New KPI Model for Collaboration and Change“, we introduce a change model with KPIs that can help guide new partnerships along the tricky art of building, expanding, and running a multistakeholder platform towards a common goal.

The key point above all;
You can design collaborative platforms to also generate trust – and here’s a manual.

In a time where trust in institutions and future is eroding, this mechanism of using trust literacy to build new collaborative platforms with strong relational strategies is needed more than ever. We look forward to promote, test, and expand the model much more in coming months and years.

Mental health is an urgent issue across every country and society. So it was a great learning experience for us – and both fun, tough, challenging, and rewarding for the professionals and families from Kazakhstan to be able to participate in the 33rd edition of the summer school for phychoanalysis, organised the School of Psychoanalysis in Almaty.

NWA contributed with two lectures and two workshops that allowed the participants to learn more about the psychosomatic symptoms of trauma, about building blocks for creating strategies for mental health and mental health literacy, about emotion-focused therapy individual, group, and organisational practice – and about experiences of improving mental resilience for both frontline workers (of all kinds).

We got to both draw upon work in Europe with both ISRICM-EU about helping vulnerable groups and MentaStress mental training, with WHO Europe and the Strategic Partner’s Initiative for Data and Digital Health on burnout, with ISEFT about professional capacity building – and learned so much about new ways to build mental health literacy in such a diverse group in age, background, history, and more.

We look forward to visit this amazing country and culture again – there are so much to share and combine.

The International Health Literacy Association (IHLA) held it first ever in-person event in Rotterdam – with global participation, is was a landmark event for both the community and the international endavours to bring data insights and collaborative research into the center of health planning, promotion, and policies.

The first Global Health Literacy Summit had been scheduled for Taiwan in 2021, but had to be held as online event; thus this event allowed partners and experts to finally connect directly after years of collaboration.

NWA participated in both discussions and events by also presenting work we’ve done in partnership with the European Health Futures Forum – EHFF.

NWA Lars Münter was invited to join the inaugural session of the EU Consortium for Cancer Prevention – the EU CCP. The EU CCP has been created to work as a stronger engagement engine for the efforts across EU to create better prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, and overall mortality and wellbeing outcomes for cancer.

The EU CCP has been setup by the JA PreventNCD that is the largest Joint Action to date. In collaboration with JACARDI (Joint Action on cardiovascular disease) and WHO Europe.

Read more about the many initiatives and events in JA PreventNCD here.

NESEI – Network of European Social Entrepreneurs and Innovators launched!

NWA participated in a great event in Brussels April 2024 to connect organisations, minds, and ideas on social progress. More to come from the network – read more (and join!) here.