The HERA consortium developed the EU Research Agenda for the Environment, Climate and Health 2021-2030. 

HERA was launched in January 2019 and ended end of March 2022. It involved 22 partners from 15 EU European Union (European Union) countries, the World Health Organisation, and a civil society organisation HEAL (Health and Environment Alliance). The project was co-coordinated by INSERM (Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale, Paris, France) and ISGlobal (Barcelona Institute for Global Health, Spain). 

Results

The HERA project established a solid, cohesive and extensive stakeholders community in Europe. Research and policy needs, gaps and priorities on environment and health were identified that are feasible, economically viable and relevant for Europe. Guidelines were developed for evaluating environmental influences on health and their socio-economic impact. The HERA project created the European Health and Environment Research Agenda 2020-2030, which encourages the development of targeted transdisciplinary research on the basis of research gaps for environmental exposures of humans and ecosystems and drivers of change in environmental exposure and policy needs integrating environment, ecosystem quality and health research.

The Horizon Europe Health call ‘Planetary health: understanding the links between environmental degradation and health impacts’ (HORIZON-HLTH-2023-ENVHLTH-02-01 is, among other drivers, a concrete result of the HERA research agenda. In the Netherlands, the HERA agenda contributed to the planetary health advice (under preparation, see Planetary Health - KNAW) of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences (in Dutch).

Role of RIVM

Together with the Finnish Environment Institute SYKE as co-lead, RIVM led WP3 on the identification and prioritisation of key topics in the environment, climate and health nexus requiring scientific support. Also, key policy and social topics for knowledge development were identified. In HERA, RIVM combined its expertise in both the health and environmental domain. Participation in HERA allowed RIVM to identify future priorities for EU research funding programmes, based on a holistic and systemic approach. This will support policymakers and help improve and protect ecosystems and human health. Birgit Staatsen, Jeroen Devilee and Sandra Boekhold of RIVM were involved in HERA. 

Funding

The HERA project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement N° 825417.