The first Citizen Lab brings women together directly to surface their lived experiences, identify their health priorities, and translate their voices, through consultations starting in Belgium, into concrete policy recommendations that are effective, adapted, and equitable. It addresses the question: ‘How can we improve women’s health at all stages of their lives?’. 

CONTEXT

Today, women’s health continues to suffer from underdiagnosis, symptoms that are minimised, fragmented care pathways, and research that is still largely designed without them. The result: women live longer, but they live longer in poor health.

Data alone is not enough. It doesn’t capture biases, omissions, or silences.

Women know:

• When their pain isn’t taken seriously
• When accessing care becomes an obstacle course
• When and how social/cultural norms influence their health
• When their professional, social, or family situation conditions their care

Giving these voices a voice is what allows us to design effective, tailored, and equitable policies. It is essential for moving our coalition forward to hear women’s voices and lived experiences, because their testimonies reveal gaps that data alone cannot unmask. Lived experiences ground policies in everyday reality, strengthen trust between patients and healthcare providers, inform culturally appropriate interventions, and guarantee responsive, respectful, and equitable solutions.

Objectives

• Capture invisible, underreported needs and experiences of women across Europe
• Structure a continental narrative on women’s health as a public, economic, and political priority
• Provide the largest body of societal insights ever produced on women’s health in Europe
• Deliver policy briefs grounded in both citizen voice and scientific expertise
• Equip EU & national decision-makers with clear, legitimate, and socially backed priorities ahead of the 2026-2027-2029 political cycle
• Strengthen cross-country alliances between academia, civil society, media, and policymakers

PHASE 1 – CONSULTATIONS IN BELGIUM

The first phase of the citizen consultations was launched on 12 April 2026 by Thémis in partnership with Kinarmat Initiative and Hormonia. It addresses the question: ‘How can we improve women’s health at all stages of their lives?’

This citizen consultation is led by Thémis, within a European framework, and designed to be replicated in several other countries.

Aims

• Gather the invisible and underrepresented needs and experiences of women in Belgium
• Compile the most comprehensive set of societal analyses ever conducted on women’s health in Belgium
• Develop policy briefs based on both participation and scientific expertise
• Provide national decision-makers with clear, legitimate, and socially validated priorities for the 2029-2034 policy cycle
• Strengthen transnational alliances between academia, civil society, the media, and policymakers
• Establish a Belgian benchmark for public interest research & participatory policy design on women’s health

In practice, the campaign should be designed in four phases:

1. Target the actors with both the strongest credibility & the widest reach
2. Expand to public & sector-specific channels
3. Reach out to more targeted but highly engaged communities
4. Serve as a final reminder with a countdown timer

Prioritisation of free and easily replicable channels first: partner newsletters, ready-to-publish content repositories, Instagram stories, internal WhatsApp groups, student networks, membership pages, and union mailing lists.

ROADMAP

In the lead-up to 2029, Thémis plans to expand the citizen consultations to five other EU countries. These will be important on an EU scale as 2029 will be the year where there is:

• European elections – renewal of the Commission
• New Horizon Europe mandate under discussion; and
• Revision of the regulation of clinical trials

Financing

To continue expanding these citizen labs and consultations, Thémis needs your support. Please reach out if you are interested in helping work on these projects in one of the aforementioned countries or want to provide financial support for the expansion of these projects (contact@wearethemis.org).

We don’t fund projects. We build the foundations of a fairer system.