JA PreventNCD held the first meeting of its Stakeholder Group on 22 January 2026, marking an important milestone in the project’s journey toward delivering stronger, more actionable prevention results across Europe.
The Stakeholder Group brings together a diverse set of actors from the health sector and beyond to support the project’s work. Members will provide guidance, share expertise, and help ensure that JA PreventNCD outputs are relevant, practical, and widely communicated through professional networks and channels.
As the project moves further into implementation and begins producing an increasing number of results and deliverables, the Stakeholder Group is expected to play a key role in helping those outputs reach the right audiences and have real-world impact.
A first meeting focused on collaboration
The session opened with a welcome and introduction from Sólveig Karlsdóttir, leader of the Communication and Dissemination work in JA PreventNCD, who also guided participants through an icebreaker and the purpose of the meeting.
Sólveig highlighted the value of creating an organised and constructive forum where external stakeholders can contribute to the project’s direction and outcomes. The Stakeholder Group is designed to support JA PreventNCD not only by providing feedback, but also by strengthening the project’s ability to connect with decision-makers, practitioners, and wider networks across Europe.
Introducing JA PreventNCD: aims, structure, and focus
Participants were then introduced to JA PreventNCD’s overall mission and structure by Professor Knut-Inge Klepp, Scientific Coordinator of the project.
JA PreventNCD is a large European collaboration working to strengthen prevention of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). The project has a strong focus on major risk factors including tobacco, alcohol, nutrition, and physical activity, reflecting areas where coordinated preventive action can have long-term benefits for population health.
Knut-Inge described how the project is organised across multiple work packages and countries, and emphasised that meaningful prevention impact requires cross-sector collaboration and engagement at national and European levels. JA PreventNCD’s work is designed to support implementation and policy development through practical tools, outputs, and shared learning across participating countries.
What is the Stakeholder Group and why does it matter?
The purpose and structure of the Stakeholder Group were presented by Hugrún Snorradóttir, task leader for Stakeholder Analysis in JA PreventNCD.
She explained that the Stakeholder Group has been created as a way to integrate stakeholder perspectives into the project’s work throughout its lifetime. This includes helping the consortium identify relevant challenges and opportunities, strengthening outputs with expert insight, and supporting communication and dissemination of results.
A key feature of the Stakeholder Group is that it is designed to be flexible and topic-driven. Rather than following a one-size-fits-all model, the group allows JA PreventNCD to connect the right expertise to the right outputs at the right time.
“The Stakeholder Group is an important bridge between JA PreventNCD and the wider community working on prevention across Europe. By inviting stakeholders to give targeted feedback on key outputs, we can strengthen the relevance and quality of what we produce. At the same time, stakeholders help us connect results to networks that can use them, share them, and build on them.” Hugrún Snorradóttir, leader of the Stakeholder Group in the JA PreventNCD.
A stakeholder group with diverse expertise
The Stakeholder Group brings together stakeholders from both health and other sectors to support the project’s objectives. This diversity is central to the group’s role, recognising that prevention requires collaboration that goes beyond public health institutions alone.
Members of the group contribute by:
- Providing advice and feedback on project outputs and deliverables
- Sharing expertise linked to prevention priorities and cross-cutting themes
- Identifying challenges and opportunities relevant to the project’s objectives
- Supporting dissemination by sharing outputs through their networks and channels
- Strengthening connections with relevant European platforms and communities
This approach is designed to create mutual value. Stakeholders have the opportunity to influence the development of outputs and ensure they reflect real needs in policy and practice. Meanwhile, the project benefits from external insight, guidance, and stronger reach beyond the consortium.
Discussion: expectations and opportunities for engagement
The agenda included a dedicated section on expectations for participation in the Stakeholder Group, followed by open discussion.
Participants reflected on how stakeholder engagement can be most useful to the project in practice, including reviewing targeted outputs, identifying dissemination opportunities, and sharing perspectives from their own sectors and areas of expertise.
The discussion also highlighted the importance of exploring both challenges and opportunities connected to the project’s objectives. These conversations will be developed further in future meetings, helping shape how JA PreventNCD outputs can support prevention efforts and policy development across Europe.
Next steps: regular meetings and continued collaboration
The meeting closed with next steps presented by Maruša Širk, the project’s Stakeholder Analysis task co-leader. The Stakeholder Group will meet again in the spring to further develop and discuss how to use the structure is efficiently and effectively as possible.
Strengthening impact as outputs increase
The first meeting of the Stakeholder Group marked the start of what will be an ongoing collaboration supporting JA PreventNCD’s work.
As the project enters its later years and delivers more outputs, stakeholder engagement will become increasingly important. By connecting JA PreventNCD’s work with expert feedback and dissemination opportunities, the Stakeholder Group strengthens both the quality of results and the chances that they will be used in policy and practice.
In doing so, the group supports a shared goal: advancing stronger, more coordinated prevention of NCDs across Europe.