Alice Chapman-Hatchett is the Director of the Health and Europe Centre, a social enterprise in the National Health Service in the UK. The Centre works to bring European learning, practice and policy to the local health community, improving patient outcomes and focussing on health inequalities and social determinants of health. The Centre has a unique understanding of how innovation can be practically transferred between health and social care systems in Europe and is running an EU-funded portfolio of projects improving patient care worth in excess of €70m.

Alice studied modern languages at the University of London and continued her studies to become an interpreter and translator. She has extensive European, public sector and civil society experience and has developed projects and partnerships across Europe and further afield. She previously worked in European Affairs for UK regional government and has 13 years’ experience of working in public health in areas ranging from sexual health, NCDs, ageing, mental health and health systems.

Freek Spinnewijn is the director of FEANTSA, the European umbrella of NGOs working with homeless people. FEANTSA has member organisations in 30 European countries. Since many years, FEANTSA works on the link between health and homelessness and concentrates on the issues that are most relevant for homeless people such as access to health, mental health, and certain communicable diseases. The organisation runs an expert group on health with health professionals working in the homelessness sector.

Freek studied Medieval History and European Law and Policy at the University of Leuven (BE). After his studies, he did internships for the UN in Geneva and the EU in Brussels. After a short stay at the University of Leuven, where he worked as a research assistant, he became director of EPSO, a European network of seniors’ organisations that merged with other European NGOs into AGE. After a short period as policy officer, Freek became director of FEANTSA in 2001. He currently sits on the board of Social Services Europe and EAPN (European Anti-Poverty network). He is member of the jury of the World Habitat Awards (organised by the Building And Social Housing Foundation in close cooperation with UN-HABITAT) and of the Venture Philanthropy Fund of the King Baudouin Foundation (BE).

Claudia Marinetti is the Director of Mental Health Europe (MHE), the largest independent European non-governmental network committed to the promotion of positive mental health, prevention of mental distress, improvement of care, advocacy for social inclusion, and protection of the rights of users and ex-users of mental health services, persons with psychosocial disabilities, their families and carers. MHE represents organisations and individuals including users of mental health services, their supporters, care professionals, service providers, volunteers, and human rights experts.

Claudia has experience in management, policy, advocacy and research, and has worked on approaches based on human rights, access to quality services, Health in All Policies (HiAP), and social inclusion. Before joining MHE, she worked for EuroHealthNet, a not-for-profit partnership working on public health, disease prevention, health promotion, and health equity. She has also carried out research in various academic settings. She is a graduate of the University of Padua in Italy and holds a PhD in Social and Applied Psychology from the University of Oxford (UK).

Jean-Paul Zerbib  is a psychiatrist in a Parisian hospital and Treasurer of FEMS. FEMS brings together representatives of trade unions and medical associations from within and outside the EU. It aims to defend the moral and material interests of doctors working under administrative subordination at European level, and ensure these doctors and their patients the best possible level of working conditions, decent salaries, continuous professional development, and diagnostic and therapeutic independence, with respect to administrations, whose exclusively economic point of view can sometimes be in conflict with the principles of a quality health system and correct medicine.

Jean-Paul works on pyscho-social risks and burn-out among healthcare workers in Europe, migrant issues, and more recently the medical and social response to COVID-19.

Florence Berteletti has over 20 years of international policy and advocacy experience in diverse fields including fiscal policies for health, tobacco control, alcohol related harm and culture policy. Florence Berteletti was appointed Secretary General of Eurocare in August 2021. Between 2018 and August 2021, Florence was Advocacy Director at the World Heart Federation where she was responsible for leading WHF’s global policy and advocacy and led dossiers related to Front of Pack Labelling, Fiscal Policies for Health, Rheumatic Heart Diseases and Air pollution, to name just a few. Before WHF,  Florence was Director of the Smoke Free Partnership (SFP), an alliance of 52 civil society organisations dedicated to the implementation of the WH Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). As Director, Florence worked with EU decision makers to ensure that tobacco control received adequate political attention and, in partnership with SFP Partners and Board members, coordinated several successful pan-European campaigns, including the revision of the EU Tobacco Products Directive. Under her leadership, SFP received the WHO World No Tobacco Day award in 2011 and the prestigious Luther L. Terry Award in 2015. Florence has served as a Board member on several EU and International Advisory Boards, including the CRUK/Bupa Foundation Cancer Prevention Initiative chaired by Professor Sir Michael Marmot.

Denis Onyango is a Director of Programmes at Africa Advocacy Foundation and oversees initiatives supporting migrants at risk or living with HIV, hepatitis, mental health, TB, mental ill-health and other health conditions in the UK and the WHO European region. He also coordinates AAF’s work to support migrants who are at risk, are survivors or currently experiencing violence, sexual exploitation, trafficking and harmful cultural practices e.g., female genital mutilation.

Denis is also a member of the European AIDS Treatment Group, a patient-led NGO that advocates for the rights and interests of people living with or affected by HIV/ AIDS and related co-infections within the WHO Europe region. He has over 20 years’ experience with grassroots community health promotion work; is involved in health policy work at national and international levels and has served on several advisory boards and policy groups. He coordinates Mi Health Europe, a policy and advocacy collaborative that works to reduce barriers and inequalities experienced by European migrant communities to strengthen their capacity to influence healthcare policy and practice.

Denis is a part of “Nobody Left Outside (NLO)”, a collective of organisations working to improve health service provision for Europe’s most underserved communities, including LGTBI, homeless, migrants, people who inject drugs, sex workers and prisoners. Denis’ background is in education, public health and policy and voluntary sector management.

Darina Sedláková (MD, MPH) is a consultant and expert in public health, mostly operating in the NGO sector promoting health and disease prevention, but also supporting processes aimed at improving health systems and health services. She has extensive experience in working with minorities and vulnerable groups. She works closely with the Slovak League against Cancer and Slovak Mental Health League, to whom she provides expertise and develops international collaboration.

Between 1994-2000 she was the Deputy Director of the Council of Europe Information Office in Slovakia, focusing on the implementation of health and socioeconomic programmes with a special focus on vulnerable groups. From 2000 to 2020 she worked at the WHO as Head of the WHO Country Office in Slovakia. In 2020 she has been invited by the Slovak Ministry of Health to fulfil the role of National Technical Focal Point in the WHO/Europe Coalition for Mental Health.

Darina is a Board member of the Slovak Association of Public Health (since 2006), a Board member of European Leagues Against Cancer (since 2019) and a Board member of Mental Health Europe (since 2021). She has participated as an expert in many international and EU-funded projects on health monitoring, health determinants, and evidence-based health outcomes. She is the co-author of several technical publications, studies and textbooks on public health.

Paul is Special Advisor to the Director-General and leadership of EPHA with a particular interest in the social, economic and political determinants of health at the European level. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (RCP London), and a Member of the Faculty of Public Health of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of the United Kingdom and the Society of Social Medicine.

Following university studies in international law, politics and economics at the University of Birmingham (UK), he has been closely involved in European public health advocacy and policy development in various settings for some 30 years. These include: Robert Schuman Scholarship holder and pharmaceutical regulation project lead in the Health Division of the European Parliament Secretariat; the first Policy Coordinator at the European Public Health Alliance; European Research Officer at LSE Health, London School of Economics and Political Science; Head of the Brussels Office of the European Health Management Association; and twice elected Board Member and Vice-President of the European Public Health Alliance. Paul was the Brussels representative of the Royal College of Physicians from 2002-2018 and is a long-standing member of the Expert Advisory Committee of the European Health Forum (Gastein). Paul has published on a variety of European health policy and political issues. He is the former editor – and current editorial board member – of Eurohealth magazine, published by the WHO European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies. He was also the European Editor of the RCP journal Clinical Medicine.

You can follow Paul on Twitter at @PaulJBelcher.