| Dear Reader, |
Welcome to the final edition of the Invest4Health Newsletter. Three and a half years ago, we set out to change how Europe thinks about investing in health promotion and disease prevention. This final edition captures where that argument now stands. Specifically, the importance and relevance of smart capacitating investment. It also shows the breadth of outputs and how the work continues through the knowledge, partnerships, tools and frameworks. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to Invest4Health, our partners, stakeholders, Citizen and Patient Advisory Group members, and everyone who has followed and supported our work. We hope the ideas, evidence, and resources developed through the project will continue to inspire healthier, more sustainable, and more collaborative health systems across Europe. Happy reading! The Invest4Health Team NEW TESTBEDS JOINED INVEST4HEALTH IN THE LAST PHASE OF THE PROJECT Following a successful Open Call in 2025, four new regional testbeds joined the Invest4Health project: the National Institute of Health (Italy), Lisbon (Portugal), Belgrade (Serbia), and Region Jönköping (Sweden). These regions brought fresh perspectives and local expertise to the consortium and worked alongside existing testbeds in North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany), Galicia (Spain), Region Skåne (Sweden), and West Wales (UK). All committed to exploring innovative, sustainable ways to finance better health through prevention and health promotion.In this issue, we introduce two of the new regional testbeds that completed the Invest4Health competence-building programme, where the regional testbeds worked together with experts to develop and strengthen innovative approaches to governance, collaboration, and financing for their health promotion and disease prevention initiatives. BELGRADE, SERBIA  Belgrade, Serbia, is a dynamic metropolitan area with a population of approximately 1.7 million people, operating within a health system undergoing transition toward more integrated, preventive, and innovation-driven models of care. While healthcare services are largely centralised and traditionally focused on treatment, there is growing recognition of the need to strengthen health promotion, disease prevention, and community-based approaches, particularly in the area of mental health.The focus of the testbed’s work was on Social Prescribing. In Serbia, it is still at an early stage of development, without a fully formalised system or structured referral pathways. However, there are emerging practices that reflect its core principles, particularly at the intersection of health, culture, and community engagement. Initiatives involving cultural participation, heritage-based activities, nature exposure, and community programs are increasingly recognised for their positive impact on well-being and social inclusion. These efforts provide a strong foundation for the future development and institutionalisation of Social Prescribing approaches in the country. Health Tech Lab, representing the region in the project, is based in Belgrade. It is an innovation-driven organisation dedicated to advancing health technologies, fostering cross-sector collaboration, and enabling the translation of research into real-world impact…READ MORE NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR HEALTH, ITALY  Another participant in the Invest4Health competence-building programme is the National Institute for Health in Italy (Istituto Superiore di Sanità – ISS), which is the leading technical and scientific body of the Italian National Health Service. It provides research, expertise and evidence-based guidance to support public health policies and initiatives. Through its multidisciplinary activities, ISS promotes innovative approaches to health promotion, disease prevention, and reducing health inequalities, with a particular focus on community-based and person-centred models of care.Their focus was also on Social Prescribing. Within this field, ISS has played a pioneering role in exploring and evaluating innovative interventions that strengthen the integration of healthcare services and community resources. This commitment reflects the ISS’s broader mission to address the social determinants of health and promote sustainable, preventive and participatory approaches to wellbeing.One of the most significant social prescribing initiatives developed in Italy to support maternal mental health is “Music and Motherhood”. Originally developed in the United Kingdom by Breathe Arts Health Research under the name ‘Melodies for Mums’, the programme has supported over 2,000 mothers and babies through NHS-commissioned services and local government programmes to date…READ MORE INVEST4HEALTH FINAL EVENT 28 MAY 2026, BRUSSELS HOSTED BY THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS  On 28 May 2026, the Invest4Health consortium welcomed policymakers, researchers, public health professionals, and investors to its Final Conference at the European Committee of the Regions in Brussels. The event marked the culmination of more than three and a half years of collaboration. It opened a discussion on how the project’s results can continue to shape future policy and practice across Europe. Under the title Mobilising New Financial Approaches for Equitable Health and Wellbeing, the event brought together experiences from eight European regional testbeds alongside the project’s Smart Capacitating Investment (SCI) approach – grounding the day’s discussions in real places, real partnerships, and real implementation challenges. Keynote speakers and panel discussions explored how innovative financing, governance, impact measurement and cross-sector collaboration can help move health promotion and disease prevention from short-term projects towards sustainable implementation.The event welcomed more than 100 participants from across Europe, representing health, finance, public administration, industry, civil society, and European organisations. This diversity reflected one of Invest4Health’s core ambitions: bringing together communities that rarely work together but are all essential for creating sustainable investment in prevention. Discussions throughout the day returned repeatedly to a shared diagnosis: the tools and evidence exist; what is missing is the governance architecture and cross-sector trust to deploy them at scale. Participants confirmed that prevention is increasingly recognised not as a cost but as a long-term investment, and these reflections fed directly into the project’s final outputs, including the White Paper and accompanying policy recommendations. The Invest4Health community continues to grow. New collaborations and follow-up activities have already emerged from the day’s discussions and other exchanges, for example, collaboration with the Transforming Health and Care Systems European Partnership and a second White Paper emerging from a panel session at the Radical Health Festival Helsinki. These ensure that the project’s legacy will support healthier, more resilient and more equitable health systems across Europe long after its Horizon Europe funding has concluded. CLICK HERE FOR THE CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS AND KEY MESSAGES EVIDENCE BASE OF INVEST4HEALTH SMART CAPACITATING INVESTMENT  Generating scientific evidence has been a key objective of the Invest4Health project. Throughout the project, consortium partners have contributed to the growing knowledge base on innovative financing, governance, collaboration, and evaluation of health promotion and disease prevention through a series of peer-reviewed publications, conference papers, and other scientific outputs.To date, the consortium has published five peer-reviewed scientific articles covering key aspects of Smart Capacitating Investment (SCI). These include the project’s methodological protocol, the conceptual development of SCI as an innovative financing approach, the potential of social impact bonds for health promotion and disease prevention, and a scoping review on cross-sectoral evaluation methods for population health interventions. Together, these publications provide an important scientific foundation for understanding how innovative financing mechanisms can support prevention and health system transformation.Beyond these published articles, several additional manuscripts are currently under development. These address topics such as collaborative governance, enabling control in the public sector, innovative financing models for social prescribing, business models for prevention, and practical lessons emerging from the Invest4Health testbeds. The consortium also continues to prepare publications that explore the implementation of Smart Capacitating Investment in different organisational and regional contexts.Scientific dissemination has extended beyond journal publications. Project partners presented Invest4Health research at numerous international conferences, including the European Public Health Conference, the Radical Health Festival, ISPOR Europe, the First European Public Health Economics Conference, and other scientific meetings across Europe. These activities helped position Smart Capacitating Investment within wider academic discussions on public health, health economics, governance, innovation, and prevention financing.All scientific publications are published in open access wherever possible and are available through the Invest4Health website. Together, they represent an important contribution to the evidence base supporting new approaches to financing health promotion and disease prevention, while also providing a foundation for future research, collaboration, and policy development. FIND THE PUBLISHED ARTICLES HERE WHITE PAPER HARD BUT NOT IMPOSSIBLE: SCALING WHAT WORKS IN HEALTH PROMOTION, DISEASE PREVENTION AND INTEGRATED HEALTH AND CARE THROUGH THE “MISSING MIDDLE”  One of the lasting outcomes of the Invest4Health project is the publication of a new White Paper addressing one of the biggest challenges facing health and care innovation in Europe: how to move successful projects beyond the pilot phase towards sustainable implementation and scale-up.The White Paper, Hard but not Impossible: Scaling What Works in Health Promotion, Disease Prevention and Integrated Health and Care through the “Missing Middle”, was developed by a joint Working Group bringing together Invest4Health and Work Package 9 of the European Partnership on Transforming Health and Care Systems (THCS), with additional contributions from the AAL Programme.Despite significant European investment in research and innovation, many promising solutions never become part of routine practice. Between the successful completion of a project and large-scale implementation lies what the authors describe as the “missing middle” — a phase where momentum stalls due to fragmented governance, insufficient financing, limited collaboration, and a lack of implementation support. The name is modest; the problem is not. It is where good ideas go to disappear. Building on the Invest4Health testbeds, the Smart Capacitating Investment (SCI) approach, and discussions with European partners, the White Paper analyses the structural barriers that hinder scaling and sets out practical recommendations to overcome them. Crucially, it argues that financing alone is not the answer: governance, regional ecosystems, stakeholder collaboration and capacity building, are equally essential conditions for health promotion and disease prevention initiatives to become genuinely sustainable. The White Paper also demonstrates what cross-programme collaboration can produce. By bringing together the complementary expertise of Invest4Health, THCS WP9, and the AAL Programme, it offers a perspective that no single project could have generated alone and a broader evidence base for the conditions needed to turn successful innovation into lasting impact. It is intended for policymakers, regional and local authorities, innovators, researchers, and funding organisations: everyone with a stake in building stronger health ecosystems across Europe. The White Paper is available alongside the full suite of Invest4Health resources (including scientific publications, reports, podcasts, Information Briefs, and the SCI Package) on the project website. READ THE WHITE PAPER HERE SMART CAPACITATING INVESTMENT PACKAGE A COMPREHENSIVE SUPPORT FRAMEWORK OFFERED BEYOND THE PROJECT  Scaling successful health promotion initiatives requires more than good ideas. It requires practical tools, knowledge, collaboration, and investment. The Invest4Health Smart Capacitating Investment (SCI) package is a comprehensive support framework designed to sustain health promotion and disease prevention initiatives.The package combines four key components: (i) an SCI knowledge base that provides evidence and research, (ii) a practical toolkit for SCI implementation, (iii) a competence-building programme with expert guidance, and (iv) a digital collaborative platform that supports stakeholder engagement, co-governance, performance monitoring, and simulation.Through structured training sessions, participants learn how to define health challenges, map stakeholders, link outcomes to resources, measure impact, and develop sustainable business and financing models.The SCI package also offers different levels of engagement from programme participation to membership and social franchise opportunities, enabling organisations to scale successful initiatives, strengthen cross-sector collaboration, and promote the long-term sustainability of health interventions across Europe. READ MORE ABOUT THE SCI PACKAGE RESOURCES THE SMART CAPACITATING INVESTMENT REPOSITORY IS NOW AVAILABLE  The openly available Smart Capacitating Investment (SCI) Repository is a central online resource bringing together the project’s knowledge, publications, and practical materials developed over the past three and a half years.The repository has been created to support researchers, policymakers, regional and local authorities, practitioners, investors, and anyone interested in innovative approaches to financing health promotion and disease prevention. It provides easy access to the project’s key outputs in one place and is intended to support learning and the continued uptake of Smart Capacitating Investment beyond the lifetime of the project.Visitors can explore project deliverables, scientific publications, the new White Paper, Information Briefs, materials from the Invest4Health Mid-Term Workshop and Final Event, as well as a podcast and video interviews with project partners and invited speakers reflecting on their experiences and lessons learned.By making key resources openly available, Invest4Health aims to support future research, policy development, capacity building, and collaboration across Europe. FIND HERE THE REPOSITORY THANK YOU As Invest4Health comes to a close, we would like to thank once again everyone who contributed to the project over the past three and a half years. We hope the knowledge, partnerships, and resources developed through Invest4Health will continue to inspire innovative approaches to financing health promotion and disease prevention across Europe. VISIT OUR WEBSITES www.invest4health.eu www.cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101095522 I4H CONSORTIUM Our consortium consists of 22 partners from 11 countries. The partnership has eight testbeds representing various health systems: Galicia in Spain, West Wales in the UK, North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany, National Institute for Health in Italy, Lisbon in Portugal, Region Skåne and Jönköping County in Sweden, and Belgrade in Serbia. https://invest4health.eu/test-beds/ |
