ADVANCE's Annual Meeting 2025

The highlight of the day was a keynote address by Robertas Povilaitis, PhD, of Vilnius University, titled “Declarations Without Deliverance: Mental Health Trapped in Policy Labyrinths.”

In his keynote, Dr. Povilaitis traced the evolution of EU and WHO declarations on mental health since the late 1990s, exposing a recurring pattern: ambitious language and lofty commitments are rarely followed by enforceable strategies at the national level. Despite various frameworks and joint actions, including the 2008 EU Pact for Mental Health and the more recent 2023 Communication on Mental Health, he questioned whether meaningful progress has been made, asking, “Are we there yet?”

Dr. Povilaitis challenged the ADVANCE consortium members to reflect and discuss how to translate policy into practical action.

The meeting also featured an equity and stigma workshop – reflecting one of ADVANCE’s core crosscutting themes. Postdoctoral researchers Andrea Bidoli and Prasansa Subba guided thoughtful discussions on key equity challenges faced by country teams and explored practical, resource-sensitive strategies to address them.

The session was followed by a focused presentation by Manuela di Allegri and Hoa Thi Nguyen on cost-effectiveness, outlining how economic considerations will be integrated into ADVANCE’s implementation strategies.

Further sessions covered open science and data sharing strategies, EU-related matters, and strengthened collaborative mechanisms within the ADVANCE project.

A key highlight of the meeting was a collaborative brainstorming session designed to help ADVANCE's six country teams tackle shared challenges in their respective mental health intervention trials. Structured into rotating sub-groups, participants focused on practical issues such as recruitment strategies, implementation fidelity, participant engagement, and ethical dilemmas around equity and inclusion. Teams exchanged experiences, identified concrete strategies, and worked toward context-sensitive solutions, underscoring ADVANCE’s commitment to collective learning and cross-site collaboration.

In the coming months, country teams will move forward with implementing their main trials and intervention studies, translating shared insights into real-world action. As ADVANCE looks ahead to its next annual gathering in Geneva, the focus will shift toward developing effective scaling strategies. 

The ADVANCE project has received funding from the EU Horizon Programme under Grant Agreement No. 101080323. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the Health and Digital Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Contact

Joyce Anne Quinto
Project and Communications Manager
joyce.quinto@sund.ku.dk