Research line: Preserving Health / Funding: Seed Funding 2026

Universities are more than places of learning and research; they are environments where occupational, social, and environmental determinants of health come together. During early adulthood and mid-career phases, students and staff develop behavioural, psychosocial, and lifestyle patterns that can have lasting effects on mental health, cardiometabolic health, and social participation.

Research increasingly shows that settings-based, whole-system approaches within higher education are more effective than isolated interventions in improving mental wellbeing, physical activity, dietary behaviour, academic performance, and social cohesion. The Healthy Campus concept, embedded in international frameworks such as the Okanagan Charter, promotes the integration of health and wellbeing into institutional governance, campus culture, physical environments, and education.

This approach closely aligns with modern prevention science, which emphasises structural, participatory, and sustainable strategies to address interconnected challenges such as increasing mental health pressures, sedentary lifestyles, and social fragmentation among university communities.

A Healthy Campus for TU/e, WUR, UU and UMCU

Across the four institutions, many promising wellbeing initiatives already exist, ranging from digital mental health tools and sports facilities to sustainable food environments and prevention-focused research. However, these initiatives often operate independently, limiting opportunities for collaboration, scalability, evaluation, and long-term institutional learning.

The Healthy Campus Programme aims to create a coordinated, evidence-based, and participatory strategy across the EWUU alliance. By moving from isolated projects to a shared alliance-wide framework, EWUU campuses will become living laboratories for preventive health innovation.

The programme not only seeks to improve the wellbeing of more than 60,000 students and staff, but also to generate transferable knowledge, implementation models, and policy-relevant insights that contribute to the future of health promotion in the Netherlands and beyond.

Overall Objective

The Healthy Campus Programme aims to design, launch, and implement a comprehensive, evidence-based, and student-centred Healthy Campus strategy across the EWUU alliance during 2026. The programme will establish a sustainable model for health promotion that connects scientific research, education, and everyday campus life.

Specific Objectives

• Complete an alliance-wide inventory and scoping review of Healthy Campus initiatives and scientific evidence by March 2026.
• Design and implement at least four parallel student-led Healthy Campus Challenges, one at each partner institution, between April and September 2026, directly engaging at least 200 students.
• Organise two interdisciplinary cross-campus collaborative challenges between October and November 2026.
• Develop an EWUU Healthy Campus Manifesto & Blueprint and present it to the Boards of Directors of all partner institutions by December 2026..