The Project: What is Health Values
The significance of the project is best understood when viewed against the current backdrop. Over the last two decades, European healthcare systems have had to contend with an ageing population, an increase in chronic diseases and multimorbidity, a shortage of healthcare professionals, cross-border mobility of patients and workers, and new challenges arising from digitalisation, artificial intelligence and the governance of health data. Added to this are the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, geopolitical tensions, the concentration of power in large technology companies, the need to strengthen the resilience of healthcare systems, and the growing impact of climate change on health. All of this necessitates a reconsideration of whether the framework formulated in 2006 remains adequate or whether it should be reformulated from a broader and more up-to-date perspective.
For this reason, the project aims not only to examine the foundational values of health in the European Union, but also to explore how these might be updated within the framework of a genuine European Health Union. The background document proposes four specific lines of development that are particularly useful for guiding the direction of the project: moving from values understood solely within national systems to values specific to a European Health Union; incorporating a preamble guided by human rights, the right to health, the One Health approach, the protection of vulnerable groups and the principle of leaving no one behind; defining a renewed set of core values — human dignity, freedom and autonomy, universal access to healthcare, equity, resilience and solidarity; and linking these values to specific operational principles such as patient-centred care, data protection, quality, safety, accountability, non-discrimination, and evidence-based and ethical care.
Within this framework, the project website plays a key strategic role. Its purpose is not merely to serve as an institutional showcase, but to become a platform for knowledge, dissemination and transfer. The website must raise the profile of the project, clearly explain its subject matter, organise its content and facilitate access to the scientific and documentary output generated. It must, at the same time, serve as an informative space for non-specialist audiences, a useful repository for the academic community and a reference tool for institutional decision-makers, healthcare professionals and other stakeholders interested in the European debate on health, equity, solidarity, resilience and governance. This informative and institutional function is consistent with the importance that the document itself attributes to values as a guiding framework for policies, institutions and healthcare practices.
The website’s purpose is therefore twofold. On the one hand, it must translate a complex conceptual framework into accessible, clear and structured language, explaining what the EU’s health values are, where they come from, why they are relevant and how they are evolving.
On the other hand, it must support the visibility and traceability of the project itself: showing who is involved, what its objectives are, what lines of research it pursues, what results it produces and what impact it seeks to generate. In this regard, the website must offer a clear structure that includes institutional information about the project, profiles and CVs of the research team, publications, documentation, results, news, events and resources of interest. It is not merely a matter of providing information, but of building a reference point that projects academic rigour, public utility and a European vocation.
Furthermore, the website must clearly convey that the project is part of a highly topical debate on the future of health in Europe. Updating ‘health values’ is not a purely theoretical matter, but a key element in considering how health policies should be designed, how public systems should respond to new crises, and how effective protection of people can be guaranteed in an environment marked by inequality, technological innovation and interdependence between states. In this context, the website must help position the project as an initiative capable of linking research, policy reflection, public debate and institutional impact.
Ultimately, both the project and the website share the same aim: to contribute to understanding, updating and disseminating the values that should guide healthcare in the European Union, both now and in the future. The project provides the framework for research, analysis and knowledge production; the website acts as a vehicle for organising, raising awareness of and transferring that knowledge to different audiences. Together, these two tools must present a robust, rigorous and accessible vision of European health values, understood not only as a regulatory legacy, but as the basis for a response that is fairer, more resilient, more inclusive and consistent with the idea of a true European Health Union.
Main goals
Objectives
Our goal is to trigger a debate how today’s European consensus on health values (and principles) can support us in responding to various crises we are facing in this situation.
Methodology
Based on previous research and expertise of the project team, a workshop in Santander and various other meetings, we see the paper published in The Lancet as a starting point to trigger a debate on the necessity to update these 2006 health values. Events such as the one in the European Parliament (15 April 2026) shall disseminate our ideas and contribute to updated health values, a cornerstone of a more resilient European Health Union, so to say.
Outcome Measurement and Evidence Generation
We promote rigorous methodologies to capture what matters most — patient outcomes, quality of life, and long-term sustainability.
Value-Based Health Care Frameworks
Research and adaptation of value-based frameworks, including economic evaluation, real-world evidence, and patient-centred metrics.
Policy Analysis and Implementation
Translational research to support policy and health system change, fostering adoption of health-value principles across stakeholders.