Leveraging innovative research tools to meet public health challenges: a BioMed21 workshop report

The biomedical research landscape is undergoing a transformative shift towards human-centric, interdisciplinary approaches aimed to enhance translational relevance, amplify research impact, and address pressing public health challenges and unmet medical needs (UMNs). Recent European and international ikenitiatives have prioritised the development and implementation of human-centric non-animal methods (NAMs) to increase research translatability, and complement or replace the use of animals in life sciences. Effective cross-sector dialogue among interest-holders is key to align goals, harmonise strategies, and cross-fertilise ideas, ensuring evidence-driven policies that deliver tangible benefits for public health and society. In this spirit, on November 18, 2024, Humane Society International/Europe (since February 14th 2025, Humane World for Animals), on behalf of the Biomedical Research for the 21st Century (BioMed21) Collaboration, hosted a science policy workshop entitled “Leveraging Innovative Research Tools to Meet Public Health Challenges”. This event provided a platform for dialogue among key interest-holders to identify priority areas requiring multidisciplinary interventions. Discussions addressed leveraging innovative technologies to tackle UMNs, reassessing research infrastructure for their future-proof potential, and advancing human-centric tools to drive transformative policy changes. Themes included the societal impact of funded research, standardisation needs, and systems-based solutions to interconnected challenges. This report summarises insights and outputs from the workshop, offering a roadmap to foster impactful, science-driven, and health-focused biomedical research paradigms that meet evolving societal and public health needs.