The European Culture and Health Hub kicked off in Groningen: the aim is to bring arts and culture into Europe’s health agenda

 

The Horizon Europe project European Culture and Health Hub (ECHH) officially kicked off on 1-3 September 2026 in Groningen, the Netherlands. The kick-off event brought together partners from across Europe for three days of collaboration, co-learning, and strategic planning. The meeting provided an opportunity for participants to get to know each other, strengthen partnerships, and align around the project’s shared vision and goals. The meeting was hosted by the Arts in Health Netherlands at the University of Groningen.

 

 

Inspiring opening lecture by Professor Daisy Fancourt

The kick-off programme began with an inspiring public lecture by Professor Daisy Fancourt on the transformative role of arts and culture in health and wellbeing. Fancourt highlighted that the arts, alongside diet, sleep, exercise and nature, are the forgotten fifth pillar of health. The session set the tone for the days ahead and emphasised the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration in addressing health challenges across Europe. The sold-out lecture was organised in collaboration with Studium Generale Groningen, and could be followed also via livestream.

 

 

Collaborative workshops and co-creation

A significant part of the kick-off focused on collaborative workshops and discussions on key project activities and deliverables. The first interactive workshop invited partners to reflect on the look, feel and usability of the online evidence gap maps. Drawing on systematic reviewing methodologies, the evidence gap maps will identify the arts interventions with the strongest evidence for large-scale implementation and scaling. The maps will provide a clear sense of where there is strong evidence suitable to inform policy and practice, and where there are key gaps that need addressing through novel research.

 

 

The next workshop session focused on European Culture and Health Hub’s visual identity, Hub’s site map and functionalities. European Culture and Health Hub as a collaborative hybrid platform is designed to connect research, policy, and practice. It enables both in-person and online stakeholder participation, awareness raising, knowledge sharing and learning. The Hub is being developed in collaboration with policymakers, practitioners, researchers and local communities, and will be launched in December 2026.

 

 

Workshop session focusing on evaluating arts and health practices and interventions provided partners with necessary knowledge and skills to conduct mix-method evaluations in their local context. Evaluations will be carried out in nine European countries, with the aim of identifying good cross-sectoral practices supporting mental health and wellbeing that have potential to be scaled up. The workshop session covered the whole evaluation process from the choice and use of standardised instruments for measuring wellbeing and mental health outcomes, to ethical considerations.

 

 

Developing culture and health policies

Monica Urian, Policy Officer at the European Commission (DG EAC), started the last day of the kick-off by giving an introduction on the topic of culture and health at the European level. She outlined topical reports, strategies and ongoing collaborations, including the OMC group’s recent report Culture and Health: Time to Act, and the cultural strategy for EU: Culture Compass for Europe, which covers culture and health as one of its topics. She highlighted that EU guidelines on culture, health and wellbeing are currently being prepared, and a monitoring framework is planned to be developed later on.

Monica Urian’s introduction was followed by a workshop session on policy development. The session focused on how to advocate for culture and health policies, and how each of the consortium members can concretely contribute to this work through finding and contacting policy makers, engaging them, organising local policy meetings, and fostering policy change on local level. The preparation of the European Policy Map was further discussed. This online map will highlight key policies in Europe on arts and health, which have been identified as innovative and influential. The interactive European Policy Map will be published in March 2027 with an aim to support countries in learning from good practice elsewhere.

 

 

Raising awareness of culture and health

Communicating and raising awareness of how engagement with the arts and culture can contribute to population health and wellbeing across the culture, health, social care, humanitarian, youth and education sectors, is a key aim of the ECHH project. Session focusing on communication and dissemination facilitated discussions on the upcoming awareness raising campaign, the key messages and target audiences. The awareness raising campaign will be co-created with community stakeholders, ensuring that the messages are inclusive, relevant and impactful. The campaign will include artistic knowledge translation of major project outputs.

 

Building a shared foundation for collaboration

The consortium also dedicated time to developing common ways of working. Discussions on the project’s Code of Conduct, stakeholder engagement, quality assurance, and project management helped establish a strong foundation for effective collaboration throughout the project. By the end of the kick-off meeting, the partnership had developed a shared understanding of priorities, agreed on next steps, and built momentum for the exciting work ahead.

 

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Written by: Liisa Laitinen, Chief Content Officer, European Culture and Health Hub
Arts Academy, Turku University of Applied Sciences

Interested in learning more about this initiative? Follow the Hub’s journey, sign up for ECHH updates here.

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European Culture and Health Hub – A Collaborative Platform Enhancing Arts, Culture and Health Policies, Practice and Research

European Culture and Health Hub (ECHH) is a Horizon Europe project that wants to bring the arts and culture into Europe’s health agenda.

A key aim of the ECHH project is to connect policymakers and practitioners across culture, health, social care, education, humanitarian and youth sectors to build stronger collaboration. Our aim is to further understanding of how engagement with the arts and culture can contribute to population health and wellbeing across these different sectors. Ultimately, the project strives for creating a momentum for broader systemic change: embedding arts and culture more deeply in public health approaches at European, national, regional and local levels.

 

Project partners:

Nord University / Norwegian Resource Centre for Arts and Health (Norway)
Turku University of Applied Sciences (Finland)
University College London (United Kingdom)
The Center for Primary Health Care Research Region Skåne (Sweden)
Culture Action Europe (Belgium)
EuroHealthNet (Belgium)
University of Porto (Portugal)
Cultural Welfare Center ETS (Italy)
Cultura en Vena (Spain)
University of Groningen/ Arts in Health Netherlands (Netherlands)
Latvian Academy of Culture (Latvia)
Mozarteum University Salzburg (Austria)
Cluj Cultural Centre (Romania)
University of Southern Denmark (Denmark)
Hope (United Kingdom)

ECHH project is additionally supported by associated partners contributing international expertise, policy engagement, and cross-sector collaboration: Arts + Health Ireland / Réalta (Ireland), Secretariat of the Northern Dimension Partnership on Culture (Latvia), United Cities and Local Governments (Spain), UNESCO (France), and the Northern Dimension Partnership in Public Health and Social Well-being (Sweden).

 

European Culture and Health Hub project is funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Research Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. Grant Agreement No 101286497.