During the time of the project the final research agenda was produced integrating the results from the whole HERA consortium. The agenda was made public and disseminated during the HERA final conference. Altogether, the work was successfully completed and disseminated to wider audiences.
In a stakeholder driven process, key topics in policy and practice were collected, reflected upon, interpreted and elaborated. Surveys were distributed in the networks of the HERA partners and regionally led stakeholder workshops were organised across Europe. Involvement of the HERA Consultation Group allowed input from European and international networks. All inputs were integrated and synthesised in an overview of key topics requiring scientific support from environment, climate and health research.
A survey was performed among 300 researchers across Europe. Reported research gaps were summarised and evaluated regarding their relevance. The gaps were then integrated with a) ongoing research efforts as funded by the EU, b) the knowledge needs, and c) prioritised and described for the final HERA research agenda. We summarised, evaluated and prioritised these research gaps, put them into context with ongoing EU-funded research and visualised results. Under-researched areas were identified, discussed and published as a special case of research gaps in peer reviewed journals. We contributed to two peer-reviewed publications regarding short-term and longer-term research needs concerning COVID-19 and its relationship with environmental stressors; HERA also contributed a session dedicated to the HERA Research Agenda at the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology conference 2020.
We reviewed the methodology of quantitative impact assessment methodologies and identified major knowledge gaps. We provided guidelines about quantitative health assessment studies and defined guidelines for the evaluation of socio-economic impacts of environmental problems. Two case studies were implemented: i) regarding climate change and ii) regarding chemical exposures.
The communication work package disseminated HERA project outputs. Six online webinars “Research for the EU Green Deal” were held between February and December 2021 (800 participants total, zero pollution, biodiversity, circular economy, climate neutrality and healthy society), to highlight contribution of environment-health-climate research in achieving EU priorities. Six e-newsletters were published and communication network was established in research communities in environment, health, climate change as well as among decision-makers and civil society stakeholders.
WHO Bonn School training had 100 participants from 40 countries developing national environment and health research agenda, risk communication and other EH topics to build capacities for evidence-based decision making and effective risk communication. Two reports on risk communication and communication strategy were published
