This past June, the University of Limerick (UL) hosted the 2025 International Health Promoting Campuses (IHPC) Conference, a milestone event in the global movement to embed health and wellbeing into higher education. It brought together more than 400 attendees from over 45 countries, including researchers, policymakers, university leaders, and representatives from intergovernmental organizations. The conference also marked the 10th anniversary of the Okanagan Charter—a seminal international agreement calling for health to be embedded into all aspects of campus culture.
At a time when our world feels increasingly fractured, a systems and settings approach to wellbeing in higher education is more vital than ever. Colleges and universities hold transformative potential to shape healthy people, places, and planet, but without intentional effort, they risk becoming transactional spaces focused on credentials and short-term outcomes.
The Okanagan Charter reminds us that health is a collective responsibility, shaped by all who contribute to campus life. To confront today’s complex challenges – including mental health, climate change, and systemic inequities – every part of the institution must be engaged. When well-being is embedded across the whole system, campuses can drive meaningful, lasting change.
The IHPC conference embodied this spirit of collective action, particularly in some of the mainstage panel sessions. One dynamic panel featured representatives from Health Promoting Networks in Australia, Canda, India, Singapore, South Africa, Turkey, the UK, and the US providing insight into how this work was playing out in their countries; another featured student voices from around the globe reflecting on their lived experiences; and still another offered high-level dialogue on the role of higher education in shaping a healthier world, with insights from WHO, UNESCO, and IUHPE.
A standout voice was Professor Evelyne de Leeuw, whose keynote challenged attendees to think beyond institutional walls. “Campuses,” she said, “are mere physical footprints of a much larger idea: to enhance individuals, communities, and planet through concentrating and formalizing knowledge.” Her reflections captured the essence of the conference: that higher education, when grounded in purpose and connectedness, can be a powerful force for healing and transformation in an increasingly fragmented world.
The conference’s many breakout sessions also reaffirmed key principles from the Okanagan Charter, including whole-system approaches, inclusive decision-making, and collaborative work across disciplines. However, another central theme was the need to move beyond good intentions and address the structural and cultural barriers that prevent lasting change. Across the globe, there was clearly a shared struggle to move from theory to action in a sustained way.
Shared struggle creates shared opportunity, and the convergence of such diverse expertise at the IHPC Conference signaled a renewed commitment towards collaborative, substantive work. As the national health promoting networks continue to grow across the globe, other opportunities for collective action can be found through efforts like the Action Network for Equitable Wellbeing (ANEW), a networked community of changemakers working together to advance systems-level transformation to improve student wellbeing, and the Inter-association Well-being Collaborative (IWC), a group of over 20 higher education associations across functional areas – from housing to counseling to human resources – united to translate shared values into coordinated, practical action. By empowering those who shape daily student experiences to work intentionally and together, these efforts lay the groundwork for lasting, systemic impact.
Additionally, the central outcome of the conference was the unveiling of the Limerick Framework for Action: Advancing the Global Health Promoting Campuses Agenda. Developed through a year of consultation and research, this new framework will stand alongside the Okanagan Charter and provide guidance for institutions seeking to promote health and wellbeing at scale. It acknowledges the changed global landscape of 2025 and seeks to be a pathway for action. As a part of the conference, attendees were able to submit commentary on the framework; those comments, as well as additional research and learning, will be incorporated before the framework’s formal release in December.
Ultimately, the IHPC 2025 Conference and the launch of the Limerick Framework for Action signal a renewed and strengthened commitment to health-promoting higher education. If the past decade has taught us anything, it’s that progress takes persistence—and that lasting transformation will depend not on promises and paradigms, but on collective, sustained action.
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