Who should attend:
Across Europe, communities, practitioners, researchers, innovators and policymakers are working to strengthen wellbeing and health through evidence‑informed, people‑centred approaches. Yet meaningful change depends not only on generating knowledge but on communicating it clearly, collaboratively, and strategically.
The MEDViEW Capacity‑Building Programme is a six‑part learning journey designed to strengthen the communication and advocacy skills that enhance and enable knowledge valorisation including fundamentals of communication, advocacy, evidence translation, digital engagement, and strategies to enhance policy integration. Each session builds on the previous one to deepen understanding and practical application, yet all can also be attended as stand‑alone workshops offering valuable insights and tools in their own right.
All sessions are interactive, combining short presentations, group exercises, and collaborative activities. Participants will leave with take‑home exercises to apply learning in their own contexts, and downloadable materials will be available after each session.
Joint sessions with the Refocusing Health project highlight how Traditional, Complementary and Integrative Healthcare (TCIH) can contribute to One Health and community wellbeing, offering new perspectives for communication and policy alignment.
Whether you are a patient advocate, interested member of the public, health professional, researcher, SME innovator or policymaker, this series provides a shared space to learn, collaborate and build the communication tools needed to support resilient, sustainable and community‑driven health environments.
Date: Wednesday, 7 October 2026
Time: 12:00 – 13:15 CET
Purpose
This opening workshop introduces participants to the foundational principles of effective advocacy and communication in health and wellbeing. Although health information is abundant, it often remains inaccessible or fails to resonate due to complexity, fragmented messaging, and limited audience awareness. These barriers hinder knowledge valorisation and slow down the uptake of evidence‑based practices across metabolic disorders, mental health, cancer care, and diabetes.
By exploring how clarity, framing, and human‑centred communication support understanding and empowerment, this session sets the stage for the deeper narrative, digital, and policy‑focused work that follows. Participants will reflect on how communication shapes trust, engagement, and the ability of communities to act on health information.
Why join this session?
Date: Wednesday, 14 October 2026
Time: 12:00 – 13:15 CET
Purpose
Evidence is central to improving health outcomes, yet scientific and clinical findings often remain inaccessible to non‑technical audiences. This workshop explores how evidence can be translated into clear, accurate, and compelling messages that support prevention, care, innovation uptake, and policy alignment.
Participants will examine examples from the real world to understand how evidence can be simplified without losing nuance. The session also addresses structural barriers such as jargon, information overload, and mismatched expectations between researchers, clinicians, patients, and policymakers.
Why join this session?
Collaborate with colleagues to craft evidence‑informed messages
Delivered with Refocusing Health
Date: Friday, 16th October 2026
Time: 12:00 – 13:15 CET
Purpose
Using the example of One Health as a collaborative, multidisciplinary approach that also holds great potential for community health, this workshop will explore how storytelling and narrative techniques could be deployed to reduce complexity and shape effective messages.
The One Health approach provides a framework that recognises the interdependence of human, animal and ecosystem health and wellbeing as a foundation for fostering sustainability and resilience. This holistic perspective lends itself well to narratives that contribute to make health evidence relatable, reduce stigma, and support engagement.
Although increasingly embraced in policy documents as a framework for tackling global challenges (e.g., antimicrobial resistance, environmental degradation), One Health faces various intellectual and practical implementation barriers. This is due to a limited understanding of its scope and objectives, as well as budgetary and operational constraints preventing effective cross-sectoral communication and coordination. The consequences are significant if action is stalled at political, institutional and individual levels.
Jointly organised by the MEDViEW and Refocusing Health projects, and drawing on participants’ own knowledge and creativity, this workshop aims to present One Health in a new light by experimenting with storytelling and narrative techniques in a collaborative effort to create meaningful, people-centric messages. The Refocusing Health project’s attempt to demonstrate how Traditional, Complementary and Integrative Healthcare (TCIH) can support One Health will provide the starting point for practical exercises and discussion.
Why join this session?
Date: Wednesday 20 th October 2026
Time: 12:00 – 13:15 CET
Purpose
This workshop explores how strategic communication planning can strengthen co‑creation processes across communities, organisations, and systems. Effective communication strategies depend on aligning messages, timing, channels, and stakeholder needs yet many initiatives struggle due to fragmented planning, limited resources, or unclear objectives.
Participants will examine how collaborative communication planning can enhance engagement across different sectors to bring meaningful impact. The session highlights how co‑creation fosters shared ownership of messages and ensures that communication reflects the lived realities of those it aims to serve.
By working together, participants will identify how strategic planning can turn collective insight into coordinated action.
Why join this session?
Date: Wednesday, 28st October 2026
Time: 12:00 -13:15 CET
Purpose
Digital and hybrid engagement formats are essential for modern health communication, yet many stakeholders face barriers such as limited digital literacy, platform fragmentation, and uncertainty about how to adapt content for online audiences. This workshop explores how digital tools, including MEDSPACE, can support knowledge valorisation, community engagement, and cross‑sector collaboration.
Participants will examine examples from several health areas to understand how digital content can empower communities. The session also addresses challenges such as misinformation, accessibility, and sustaining engagement across diverse audiences.
Why join this session?
Delivered with Refocusing Health
Date: Friday, 30 October 2026
Time: 12:00 – 13:15 CET
Purpose
The aim of Session is to explore how evocative narratives can be translated into policy ready communications that resonate with policy audiences.
Jointly organised by the MEDViEW and Refocusing Health projects, this session will look at the outcomes from prior sessions and engage in exercises and discussions on how to strategically adapt and break down narratives to solidify an implementation approach using One Health as a focus.
The inherent complexity of the One Health perspective creates various challenges: successful implementation relies on a multi-stakeholder effort to coordinate actions, collect evidence and establish effective channels for communication and collaboration across sectors in the long term. For policymakers, this presents major difficulties given that political mandates, budget cycles and organisational structures are not aligned. Furthermore, One Health comprises various policy areas commonly managed in silos.
In this session, participants will examine how narratives can be shaped, adapted, and applied in ways that policymakers and decision‑makers can clearly understand and act on. Through guided exercises, they will explore how to frame narratives in ways that support the uptake and use of knowledge enabling policymakers to understand, engage with, and act on the evidence presented.
Why join this session?
