Nick Fahy, Senior Researcher, Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford, is a researcher and consultant in health policy and systems, looking at how health systems work; what we can learn by comparing health systems across countries; and how to bring about constructive change in health systems.

At the EHFG 2019, Nick moderated the Lunch Workshop Horizon Europe: Strategic priorities in European health research, organised by the European Commission. After the session we discussed his views on the future of health research under Horizon Europe and the key take-home messages from the debate.

A one on one interview with Magda Rosenmöller, MD, Ph.D., MBA – Associate Professor at IESE Business School and one of the founders of EIT Health conducted by a Young Gasteiner Anca M. Sarbu, MSPH – Head of Quality Management & Organisational Development at Klinik Meissenberg AG and Health Innovation Mentor at EIT Health, Switzerland.

As an ambassador for health innovation, Magda was involved in the session on “The digital future of healthcare” at the EHFG 2019, where she boldly called for much needed transformation.

During the 22^nd EHFG, Young Gasteiners Durdica Vukic Marosevic and Bélène Podmore had the opportunity to sit down with Tyra Grove Krause, the Head of Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Prevention at Statens Serum Institute (SSI) in Denmark. The main duty of SSI is to ensure preparedness against infectious diseases and biological threats as well as control of congenital disorders. This includes research with over 400 publications a year, disease surveillance, special diagnostics, the maintenance of the Danish National Biobank, as well as the responsibility for vaccine supply in Denmark. They wanted to get some insights on how the Danish surveillance system for infectious diseases works, whether the Danish colleagues use big data and – following the theme of the 2019 EHFG conference – what Tyra perceived disruption to be.

Even though the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared that “immunization is one of modern medicine’s greatest success stories” with around 2 to 3 million deaths prevented every year, in 2019 WHO rated vaccine hesitancy as one of the 10 biggest threats to global health worldwide. The session on Vaccine Ecosystems Health Check was a stimulating thought-provoking discussion in which experts from different backgrounds discussed the complexity of the vaccine ecosystem, the challenges and the need for collaboration. The moderator of the session, Natasha Azzopardi Muscat, president of the European Public Health Association (EUPHA), consultant in public health and senior lecturer at the University of Malta shared with us her experience and insights after the session.

Anja Schiel is a Senior Adviser & Statistician at the Unit for Health Technology Assessment (HTA) and Reimbursement, Norwegian Medicines Agency (NoMA). At the EHFG, she gave her perspective on “Making real world data real” during a workshop under the same title about improving regulatory approval of new therapies.

According to the World Health Organization, HTA is the systematic evaluation of properties, effects, and/or impacts of health technology. It is a multidisciplinary process to evaluate the social, economic, organisational and ethical issues of a health intervention or health technology. The main purpose of conducting an assessment is to inform policy decision making.