The One Health 2024 Day, held on April 22 at the Université de Liège, brought together experts and stakeholders to promote a global approach to health. The University of Montréal presented its "One Health" initiative, aimed at federating interdisciplinary efforts for sustainable health. The event highlighted the importance of international collaboration in meeting the challenges of human, animal and environmental health.
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n the magical setting of the Rêve Général festival, ULiège organized its first "One Health" day. A delegation from the University of Montreal took the opportunity to share their experience of the One Health institutional approach. The event, which brought together academic experts, artists, field workers and students, was aimed at strengthening collaboration, particularly at international level, around the One Health concept, which aims to promote an integrated, systemic and unified approach to human, animal, plant and environmental health.
The University of Montreal, represented by a delegation, presented its “One Health Initiative.” This initiative seeks to establish an academic environment where research, education, and partnerships are profoundly interdisciplinary and inclusive. Its objective is to unite the academic community to address contemporary challenges and enhance preventive and resilience capacities for future generations. By integrating the One Health approach into its activities—whether through eco-responsible research practices, community actions, campus development, or new training programmes—the university aims to set an exemplary standard.
Nicolas Macia, the principal coordinator of the University of Montreal’s One Health Initiative, moderated a round table discussion on how universities can firmly anchor themselves in real-world issues through collaborations with local and international organisations.
Discussions during the event highlighted several barriers to adopting the One Health approach within academia. A significant obstacle is the overloaded schedules and the productivity and competitiveness pressures characteristic of the research world. This issue is exacerbated by a lack of mutual understanding between sectors and divergent priorities, which, while potentially resolvable, require time to address.
Strengthening the One Health approach within universities necessitates dismantling silos between disciplines. Beginning at the educational level, this involves promoting collaborative and interdisciplinary work among students, supported by systemic thinking. From the outset of their studies, students would benefit from understanding the connections between human, animal, plant, and ecosystem health, as well as between life sciences, social sciences, engineering, and applied sciences. This goal is far from being a vague aspiration; it has been earnestly pursued by the University of Liège and the University of Montreal for several years. Notably, the University of Liège has incorporated the One Health approach into its academic programmes since 2019, especially in the Master of Public Health, with related concepts being mobilised in various other programmes since at least 2015. Furthermore, three specialised master’s programmes provide international students, young professionals, and seasoned experts with training in these innovative approaches, focusing on health risk management, disaster response, and environmental challenges.
To overcome the challenges identified, the Montreal delegation and participants stressed the need to mobilise adequate resources and establish a conducive framework for collaborative research. Despite the recent growth of transdisciplinary approaches—combining interdisciplinarity with societal actor participation—within universities, efforts to break down barriers between faculties must be intensified. For the round table participants, the creation of new resources is vital. Financial considerations quickly became central to the discussions. Funding can be both a facilitator and a hindrance: while it encourages researchers to engage effectively, it can also generate tensions and undermine priorities since benefits, often assessed using traditional quantitative metrics, tend to emerge only in the long term.
Participants underscored that limited budgets and intense competition for funding could quickly discourage academics interested in interdisciplinary research, prompting authorities to favour more conventional investments with quicker quantitative returns.
To sustain the One Health approach, strong and long-term institutional support is essential. The Montreal delegation shared its efforts to advocate for tailored funding mechanisms that free up time for researchers involved in interdisciplinary projects. This involves revising researcher performance metrics to include collaboration and societal impact indicators rather than focusing solely on conventional metrics like publications and citation indices.
Nicolas Macia also highlighted the need for dedicated physical spaces to serve as platforms for interdisciplinary meetings and networking. These environments are key to embedding the One Health approach within universities by fostering exchanges and collaborative innovation. In summary, these solutions require the establishment of dedicated funds for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research, support structures to help researchers navigate the complexities of intersectoral projects, and dedicated spaces to serve as fertile grounds for interdisciplinary encounters. Valuing intermediate outcomes using both quantitative and qualitative criteria, including societal effects, is also imperative.
Ultimately, integrating the One Health approach requires a profound transformation of academic culture, prioritising interdisciplinarity and collaboration. The Montreal delegation encouraged universities to become agents of change in sustainable health by forging strong partnerships with local communities and co-creation networks.
The exchanges between the Montreal delegation and their Liège hosts demonstrated how this shared vision could inspire tangible actions and meaningful progress. This partnership between the University of Liège and the University of Montreal contributes to the growth of an international network dedicated to sustainable and inclusive health.
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