The PREVENT consortium gathered in Barcelona on 6–7 July 2026 for its fifth Plenary Meeting, bringing together project partners from across Europe to review progress, exchange experiences from the pilot countries, and prepare for the next phase of implementation.
As the project moves further into its piloting stage, discussions focused on translating research into practical action. Partners shared progress across the Greek, Catalan and Swedish Living Labs, reviewed the development of PREVENT’s digital solutions, and explored how the project’s evidence can support the future scale-up of effective childhood obesity prevention interventions across Europe.
From co-creation to implementation
A major milestone highlighted during the meeting was the continued transition from co-designed interventions to real-world implementation.
Across the three pilot countries, schools, families, healthcare professionals, researchers and local stakeholders are now actively participating in PREVENT interventions designed to promote healthier lifestyles among children and adolescents. While each Living Lab addresses local priorities and contexts, they all share a common objective: demonstrating how evidence-based, digitally supported interventions can improve healthy behaviours and contribute to long-term cancer prevention through tackling childhood obesity.
Partners also reflected on the importance of co-creation throughout implementation. Feedback collected from participants, educators and communities continues to inform the refinement of interventions, ensuring that the tools remain relevant, user-friendly and adaptable to different settings.
Progress across the Living Labs
The meeting showcased encouraging progress from all three pilot countries.
In Catalonia, the school-based Olympic School intervention has completed implementation with more than 800 participating children, while preparations are well underway for the launch of the family-centred GUAI digital platform. The Living Lab also demonstrated how collaboration with schools, healthcare professionals, families and community organisations is strengthening long-term ownership of healthy lifestyle initiatives.
The Greek Living Lab continues to expand its implementation, engaging schools across the country in interventions focusing on healthy nutrition, breakfast habits and healthier snacking. Digital applications and educational resources are now supporting participant engagement, while stakeholder collaboration remains central to ensuring the interventions fit naturally within school communities.
In Sweden, partners presented progress on innovative school-based interventions promoting healthier food environments. Early implementation has demonstrated strong interest among students, particularly in initiatives encouraging fruit consumption, while additional activities focusing on school meals and food advertising are preparing for broader rollout. Lessons learned from these pilots are already informing future implementation strategies and scalability planning.
Digital innovation supporting healthier lifestyles
Another important focus of the meeting was the continued development of PREVENT’s digital ecosystem.
Partners demonstrated several digital solutions that support the project’s interventions, including mobile applications for children and families, conversational coaching tools, interactive educational platforms and monitoring technologies designed to better understand lifestyle behaviours while supporting participant engagement. These tools are being refined throughout the implementation process using continuous feedback from users and pilot sites.
Alongside technology development, the consortium also reviewed progress on data governance, trustworthy artificial intelligence, and legal and ethical frameworks, helping to ensure that PREVENT’s digital innovations are implemented responsibly and in line with European data protection requirements.
Building evidence for sustainable scale-up
Looking beyond the pilots themselves, the consortium discussed how PREVENT will generate practical evidence to support future implementation beyond the lifetime of the project.
Partners reviewed ongoing work to evaluate interventions not only from a health perspective, but also through social acceptance, cost-effectiveness, sustainability and policy integration. These complementary assessment frameworks will help identify which interventions are most feasible for wider adoption and under what conditions they can be successfully embedded into existing health and education systems.
The meeting also presented preliminary findings from PREVENT’s work on implementation research and scale-up. Drawing on insights from stakeholders across Europe, this work explores the organisational, political, financial and societal factors that influence whether successful interventions can move from pilot projects into routine practice.
Strengthening collaboration beyond PREVENT
Beyond the project’s internal activities, partners also explored opportunities for collaboration with the wider Prevention and Early Detection Cluster, which brings together six Horizon Europe projects working to strengthen cancer prevention and early detection across Europe. The exchange highlighted the importance of sharing knowledge, implementation experiences and policy recommendations to maximise impact beyond individual projects.
Looking ahead
As PREVENT enters the next phase of implementation, the consortium remains focused on generating robust evidence that can support healthier lifestyles for children and adolescents across Europe. By combining implementation research, digital innovation and strong stakeholder engagement, the project continues to work towards scalable, sustainable approaches that contribute to reducing childhood obesity and, ultimately, lowering future cancer risk.
The discussions in Barcelona reinforced the consortium’s shared commitment to ensuring that the knowledge generated through PREVENT can translate into lasting improvements for children, families and communities well beyond the project’s lifetime.
