After the Commission had tasked its Group of Chief Scientific Advisors (GCSA) with providing advice on One Health Governance in the EU, a report and a scientific opinion was published end of 2024. It assessed how the EU can align its policies with the One Health approach, improving coordination between different sectors like food production, agriculture, environmental policies, and animal and human health.
From 2018 until 2025, Prof. Dr. Nicole Grobert, a German-British materials chemist, has been one of seven Chief Scientific Advisors of the European Commission’s GCSA. During the last five years she has also been Chair of the Group.
What is the ‘One Health approach’, and ‘One Health governance’, and why is it important?
For example, if bees were to become extinct, it would disrupt the global food supply. We would be facing global food shortages as bees are important pollinators for many of the crops we rely on. Bee extinction would potentially lead to further extinctions of dependent species, and would leave our environment less diverse and resilient. A One Health approach means thinking through the implications of that, and acting on the implications. It means avoiding, for example, the use of insect-pest control to ‘protect’ a certain crop, which might save the specific crop at the time, but could have detrimental effects on the bee population and the wider ecosystem essential for bees and other insects, animals, and humans.
The One Health High-Level Expert Panel (OHHLEP) defines One Health as: “An integrated, unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimise the health of people, animals, and ecosystems.” The definition has been developed by key organisations and experts in the field over the past 20 years.
When we talk about One Health governance, we mean the structures, policies, and collaborative mechanisms that enable this approach to be implemented effectively across sectors and levels – local, national, EU, and global.
We need effective One Health governance because many of today’s most pressing challenges such as pandemics, antimicrobial resistance (AMR), biodiversity loss, and climate change are all deeply interconnected. If each of the many organisations were to address these challenges in silos – which would be a bit like having top football players all playing for themselves, and not in a team – it would lead to inefficiencies and missed opportunities. With better One Health governance, we would get more coherence, coordination, and resilience in policy responses.
What are the biggest challenges to the roll-out of One Health governance across the EU?
Nicole Grobert: The European Commission has acknowledged the importance of a One Health approach, for example in actions on AMR. The increase in collaboration between different agencies responsible for health, food safety and the environment is another significant step forward.
But the Commission wants to move further in the implementation of a One Health approach, and that’s why they asked for a scientific opinion on how it can improve governance of One Health at the EU level.
The opinion found several key challenges.
- Firstly, there’s the issue of fragmented competences. While certain competences like public health are dealt with at the national level, others such as agriculture and environment are shared between the Union and its Member States. That makes the overall coordination of interconnected and systemic challenges difficult and complex, because who then has the authority to coordinate actions?
- Secondly, siloed institutions: many EU and national agencies operate within sector-specific mandates and areas. Collaboration across sectors is therefore difficult if not impossible at times.
- Working in silos often leads to a lack of a common vision, as there is no unified EU-wide strategy or high-level coordination That’s currently the case for One Health, which is the third big challenge.
- Fourthly, we have the question of funding and resources. Whilst funding exists under structures like Horizon Europe and EU4Health, funding streams are not always aligned or integrated across sectors. This has wider consequences in that true transdisciplinary research is not common, so researchers are not used to working across sectors and are unaware of how other research sectors work. It also means that project or research paper evaluation of inter and transdisciplinary research is not straightforward, as it requires a mix of expertise and a common language.
One way round that is to promote inter and transdisciplinary research and innovation more vigorously. Right now, there are still institutional and structural barriers to interdisciplinary research, and funding mechanisms often reinforce disciplinary silos.
- And then last of all, One Health data is difficult to integrate because the systems that provide the data are not fully interoperable or harmonised. These systems need compatible operating structures, just as researchers from different research areas need to find a common language. This also applies to surveillance systems for human, animal, and environmental health.
Where do you see the biggest gaps in co-operation and coherence across current EU policies and institutions?
Nicole Grobert: There are several key areas where significant gaps persist, so we came up with six recommendations which specifically target these gaps.
The coherence of existing One Health-related policies, such as the Green Deal, the Farm to Fork Strategy, and the AMR Action Plan could be improved; these policies sometimes lack coordination or shared indicators. Ensuring that they operate in a coherent manner is vital for the implementation of One Health and for this to happen the OHHLEP definition of One Health needs to be adopted by everyone, with effective governance to reflect that put in place.
With One Health being a systemic challenge, everyone needs to contribute. Many different sectors need more training. However, One Health is currently not yet embedded in professional training across disciplines such as medicine, veterinary science, and environmental science. This could even start at a very young age, in primary schooling or even earlier. Therefore, support for education, training, and knowledge sharing is crucial.
Surveillance and Early Warning Systems are still largely sector-specific and not fully integrated across human, animal, and environmental domains. Improving the surveillance and risk assessment is critical to be able to act fast as and when necessary.
What kind of follow-up is expected, and what indicators can be used to monitor the progress on One Health implementation?
Nicole Grobert: The follow-up needs to involve both strategic and operational actions. We recommended:
- the adoption of a unified EU One Health strategy,
- the establishment of a high-level coordination mechanism, and,
- alignment with international frameworks like the Quadripartite Joint Plan of Action.
All of that will be of strategic importance.
From an operational perspective, developing integrated surveillance systems, more programs for education and training, and a multistakeholder platform for knowledge sharing will be essential.
For the monitoring, based on the scientific evidence we proposed, there is a need for many types of indicators – qualitative, quantitative, and cross-cutting. The qualitative one would include the existence of national One Health strategies, coordination bodies, and integrated surveillance systems, for example.
The quantitative indicators should cover things like monitoring the reduction in AMR rates, zoonotic disease incidence, environmental pollution levels, and cost-effectiveness of integrated interventions. For cross-cutting indicators, we are thinking of metrics like mental health, biodiversity, and socio-economic resilience, alongside performance indicators that reflect both health outcomes and ecosystem resilience. The good news is that there are already some integrated data systems in place, and standardised evaluation frameworks, such as those from WHO and FAO.
The EU could help to make all this happen with a roadmap that features short-, medium-, and long-term goals, and by helping Member States create national One Health strategies.
And then last but not least, we need more investment in research. That will be critical for filling knowledge gaps, especially in disease ecology, behavioural drivers, and regulatory science.