Translational Research Programme in Neuroscience and Traditional, Complementary and Integrative Medicine (TCIM)

The Strategy organises the next decade around four objectives: strengthen the evidence base; support the provision of safe and effective TCIM through appropriate regulatory mechanisms; integrate safe and effective TCIM into health systems; and optimise the intersectoral value of TCIM and strengthen communities.

Its implementation is guided by nine principles: evidence base; holism and health; sustainability and biodiversity; right to health and autonomy; rights, culture and health of Indigenous Peoples; people-centred care and community engagement; integrated health services; and health equity. These principles show that the agenda is not limited to the clinical efficacy of isolated interventions: it includes rights, systems, natural resources, culture, participation and intersectoral consequences.

Key concept for study. The four objectives distinguish scientific and public-policy problems that are often conflated: generating evidence is not the same as demonstrating regulatory safety; demonstrating safety and effectiveness is not the same as appropriately integrating care into a system; and health-system integration does not exhaust the social, environmental, cultural and economic effects related to TCIM.

The GTMC Research and Evidence unit works on identifying gaps, defining national, regional and global priorities, evidence synthesis, development and evaluation of methods and mapping research funding. The agenda recognises that the diversity of practices, products, knowledge systems and contexts of use requires methods appropriate to the questions under investigation.

The WHO Global Report on Traditional, Complementary and Integrative Medicine 2024, published in 2025 with data from 106 Member States, establishes an international baseline on governance, financing, workforce, herbal medicines, research, service models and access. This baseline makes it possible to follow implementation of the 2025–2034 Strategy over time.

Transversal learning. An evidence agenda can operate at different scales: study of an intervention, literature synthesis, priority-setting, funding mapping, systems data and international monitoring. “Generating evidence” is therefore an architecture of related scientific functions rather than a single study design.

The Strategy treats integration as an objective in its own right and conditions implementation on safety, effectiveness, context and organisation of health systems. In 2025, WHO also published a conceptual framework for integrating TCIM into health systems, broadening the discussion beyond the mere simultaneous presence of conventional and traditional services.

This approach makes it possible to examine integration across dimensions such as governance, financing, workforce, service delivery, information, products and technologies, people's participation and links with primary health care and universal health coverage. The question ceases to be only “does the practice work?” and begins to include “under what conditions, for whom, by whom, with which safeguards and within what care architecture?”.

Key concept for study. Integration is not synonymous with coexistence. It is a relational property of the system: it depends on interfaces among people, practices, professions, services, data, regulation, financing and governance. This formulation brings integration closer to the analysis of interfaces observed in other ecosystems, without assuming that institutional models are equivalent.

The second strategic objective explicitly separates safety and effectiveness from the mere availability of practices or products. The regulatory agenda covers products, practices and professionals and connects quality, appropriate use, competence, monitoring and protection of people.

For products of natural origin and complex therapeutic systems, this perspective makes product identity and quality, composition, supply chain, variability, dose and mode of use, interactions, adverse events, pharmacovigilance and the proportionality of regulatory requirements to risk and context scientifically relevant.

Transversal learning. Safety is not a single check performed before implementation. It can be followed throughout the life cycle of products, practices and services, linking regulation, quality, surveillance, data and learning after use.

The Strategy recognises sustainability and biodiversity, the right to health and autonomy, the rights of Indigenous Peoples, culture and health as guiding principles. The World Health Assembly highlighted protection of traditional knowledge, Indigenous rights and responsible use of natural resources as components of the TCIM agenda.

The GTMC theory of change connects the use of natural resources in traditional medicine and biomedicine with biodiversity preservation, legislation on traditional knowledge and intellectual property, equitable access and benefit-sharing. In this way, the chain linking knowledge, biological resources, research, innovation and products can also be examined as a problem of governance and justice.

Key concept for study. Biodiversity does not appear merely as a source of molecules or raw materials. It integrates relationships among ecosystems, knowledge, rights, production chains, sustainability and distribution of benefits — dimensions that may require units of analysis and indicators different from those used for clinical outcomes.

The fourth objective of the Strategy explicitly broadens the agenda to the intersectoral value of TCIM. The GTMC theory of change includes outcomes related to economic and sustainable development, biodiversity, legislation, research and innovation, systems integration and access to evidence-based information.

This framework makes it possible to study consequences that cut across health, environment, biodiversity, culture, production, economy and communities, provided that each relationship is formulated as a researchable question and followed with indicators appropriate to the level analysed.

Transversal learning. An object or practice may produce effects in more than one system without all such effects belonging to the same study. Intersectoral analysis requires distinguishing levels, mechanisms and outcomes and making explicit when an empirically researchable relationship exists between them.

2026 update. On 31 July 2026, WHO opened a call for development and application of a TCIM Macroeconomic, Social, Environmental and Biodiversity Analysis Framework, explicitly defining as an object of analysis the connections of TCIM with economic, social, environmental and biodiversity dimensions, including biodiversity preservation, science and technology. The GTMC Annual Report 2025, published in July 2026, also situates traditional medicine in the context of sustainable health systems, primary health care, population ageing and Planetary Health.

WHO · TCIM macroeconomic, social, environmental and biodiversity framework · 31 Jul. 2026 ↗ · WHO GTMC · Annual Report 2025 · 21 Jul. 2026 ↗

The GTMC combines evidence generation and synthesis with data networks, a global traditional-medicine library, digital applications and emerging technologies. The theory of change published by the Centre connects research, health and biodiversity data systems, innovation and collaboration among countries.

The digital agenda increases requirements for methodological quality, provenance, interoperability, adequate representation of different knowledge systems, data governance and explicit criteria for the use of analytical technologies and artificial intelligence.

Transversal learning. Digitalisation can expand scale, connection and analytical capacity, but it also makes problems of classification, context and governance more visible. The greater the integration of heterogeneous data, the greater the importance of knowing where they came from, what they represent and under what conditions they may be compared.

Thematically related frameworks may converge without sharing the same scale, purpose or architecture. Comparative reading distinguishes what each source formulates, where substantive approximations exist, where differences remain and which new questions emerge from comparison.

Criterion for comparative consistency. An observation retains scientific value when it is supported by its own source, context and evidence. Lexical or thematic similarity alone does not demonstrate equivalence between architectures.

Transversal learning. Comparing related frameworks requires observing agreements as well as differences in scale, emphasis, purpose and operationalisation. Well-characterised divergences can be as informative as convergences.

WHO · Global Traditional Medicine Strategy 2025–2034 ↗

WHO · Global Traditional Medicine Centre ↗

WHO GTMC · Research and Evidence ↗

WHO GTMC · Annual Report 2025 · published in 2026 ↗

WHO · Global Report on TCIM 2024 ↗

WHO · Strategic and Technical Advisory Group on TCIM — STAG-TM ↗

The China National Biodiversity Conservation Strategy and Action Plan (2023–2030) integrates conservation, monitoring, restoration, sustainable use, governance of genetic resources and fair and equitable benefit-sharing. The plan includes specific action for protection and transmission of traditional knowledge related to biodiversity, covering, among other fields, ethnic medicine and Traditional Chinese Medicine, and provides mechanisms for access and benefit-sharing involving genetic resources, digital-sequence information and associated traditional knowledge.

The Traditional Chinese Medicine Law adds a layer specific to medicinal resources: it establishes quality monitoring and source traceability of medicinal materials and requires protection, dynamic monitoring and periodic surveys of wild medicinal plant and animal resources, with conservation of genetic resources and support for protection and research of rare or threatened species. Transversal learning: quality of medicinal material, provenance and ecological sustainability may belong to the same governance chain. This reading is confined to the Chinese framework and is not presented as equivalent to Brazilian or international regimes concerning the rights of Indigenous peoples and traditional communities.

China · Biodiversity Conservation Strategy and Action Plan 2023–2030 ↗ · Traditional Chinese Medicine Law ↗

The documents observed show different mechanisms of articulation among tradition, innovation, basic research, clinical research and implementation: preservation of TCM's own characteristics; principle of equal importance between TCM and Western medicine; scientific modernisation; basic and clinical research; service integration; digital transformation; ageing and life-course care.

The three ecosystems have their own and complementary configurations. Hefei highlights institutional proximity among basic science, biomedical engineering and hospital; Hangzhou brings together neuroscience, neuroengineering, BCI, signal acquisition and clinical interfaces; Ningbo highlights a territorial scale of articulation among TCM, hospital, clinical training and public administration. At regional scale, the Yangtze Delta adds multicentre governance; at national scale, policies, standards and funding structure other layers of the system.

Together, these scales make it possible to study an important methodological principle: translational systems can articulate multiple layers. Policies, funding, standards, basic research, technological development, clinical investigation, services, territory and governance can compose distinct and complementary configurations for knowledge translation.

What the China block makes especially visible. The combined reading of these entries reveals eight recurring analytical dimensions: (1) transition from national priority to sectoral instruments; (2) coexistence of different degrees of scientific maturity; (3) integration as a measurable and multidimensional phenomenon; (4) data quality and governance incorporated into design; (5) multicentre networks also as a governance problem; (6) interfaces among neuroscience, engineering, data and clinical work; (7) territory as a scale of implementation; and (8) preservation of TCM's own characteristics in processes of innovation, investigation and integration with Western medicine.

Synthesis for study. The main learning lies in the possibility of observing, with precision, how different levels of a scientific-health system may articulate: policy → standard → funding → infrastructure → method → data → research → clinical work → service → territory → governance. This sequence functions as an analytical map; the concrete relationships among its components vary according to the object, institution and scale observed.

Principle for institutional reading. The policies, standards, universities, hospitals and networks referenced here are presented according to their own documentation and in respectful comparative language. The analysis seeks to understand forms of organisation, integration and knowledge translation while preserving context, official terminology and institutional specificities.

Keys for comparative reading. The Chinese case offers a particularly rich opportunity to understand, in its specificities, different layers of organisation: national science and technology policy; health policy; specific TCM policy; technical standardisation; scientific funding; service organisation; multicentre networks; regional governance; and institutional ecosystems. Reading these layers together reveals the diversity of mechanisms through which science, health, innovation and implementation may articulate.

Primary and permanent sources, also useful for teaching and verification:

China · 15th Five-Year Plan 2026–2030 ↗

State Council · National Health Plan 2026–2030 ↗

MIIT and six authorities · national BCI policy ↗

State Council · TCM revitalisation and development plan 2026–2030 ↗

SAMR · GB/T 47336-2026 · TCM clinical-research quality ↗

NHC · WS/T 901-2026 · clinical-research quality and data management ↗

NSFC · Guide to Programs 2026 · H33 Integrative Medicine ↗

Ministry of Ecology and Environment · China National Biodiversity Conservation Strategy and Action Plan 2023–2030 ↗

National Health Commission · Law of the People’s Republic of China on Traditional Chinese Medicine ↗

Yangtze River Delta · Consensus on collaborative multicentre ethics review ↗

Yangtze River Delta · operation with 59 lead-review institutions ↗

USTC · Division of Life Sciences and Medicine ↗ · USTC · academic structure and disciplines ↗

Zhejiang University · Department of Neurobiology / Brain Research Consortium ↗

A broadened reading of the health–disease process asks not only which biological alteration is present, but how it emerges, is perceived, distributed and cared for under concrete living conditions. Environmental exposure, work, food, housing, social relationships, discrimination, income, education, culture, access to policies and services, and territorial characteristics may modify risks, vulnerabilities, protection, experience of illness and possibilities for care.

This does not dissolve biological mechanisms into social explanations, nor reduce social phenomena to biomarkers. The scientific question defines which levels need to be observed and which relationships can be tested. Person, family, community, population, service and territory may constitute different and complementary units of analysis or intervention.

Key concept for study. The health–disease process is simultaneously biological and situated. Investigation of context identifies conditions that modify exposure, vulnerability, response, access, outcomes and implementation, incorporating them into causal design where relevant.

SUS encompasses promotion and prevention, Primary Health Care, specialised and hospital care, urgent and emergency care, epidemiological, health and environmental surveillance, pharmaceutical services, rehabilitation and other public-health functions. Governance is interfederative: responsibilities and financing are shared across three levels of government, while regionalised networks seek to articulate services of different technological densities.

Universality refers to the right of access; comprehensiveness, to articulation of the actions required by different health needs; and equity, to consideration of inequalities and distinct needs so that the universal right is not applied indifferently to the concrete conditions of people and populations.

Key concept for study. Universality and territorialisation are complementary dimensions of the same system: a system can uphold a common right while organising differentiated responses according to needs, vulnerabilities, available networks and local characteristics.

Primary Health Care (PHC) constitutes the first level of care and performs functions of access, longitudinal follow-up, care coordination and articulation with the Health Care Network. The Family Health Strategy (ESF) — the designation that succeeded the former Family Health Programme — is the priority model for care and reorganisation of PHC in the country.

Multiprofessional teams develop individual, family and collective actions for populations in defined territories and assume health responsibility for them. Knowledge of local reality, home visits, therapeutic relationships, continuity and identification of factors and determinants of health needs bring care, family, community and territory closer together.

Learning for study. Territory does not function merely as a geographical coordinate or adjustment variable. In ESF, it participates in the organisation of health responsibility itself, observation of needs and design of care.

The National Humanisation Policy developed devices to make comprehensiveness operational in the encounter among people, teams and services. The Clínica Ampliada e Compartilhada broadens the object of work beyond isolated disease, recognising singularity, autonomy, relationships, context and the limits of professional classifications and interventions.

The Projeto Terapêutico Singular (PTS) organises care offers around the needs of a person — and, where relevant, their family or collective — in the real context of life. It may articulate biological, pharmacological, psychosocial, family, socio-educational and community dimensions, with objectives, responsibilities, reference professional or team, follow-up and periodic reassessment. PTS is dynamic: outcomes and changes in context may require revision of the plan itself.

The matrix support and reference teams make it possible to share knowledge and responsibilities among professionals and services without automatically fragmenting care into independent referrals. The Balint-Paideia, developed in the Brazilian context from Balint groups and the Paideia Method, uses meetings of health workers as spaces for reflection and learning about knowledge, power, relationships and affects present in care; it dialogues with Clínica Ampliada, PTS, reference teams, matrix support and co-management.

Key concept for study. Comprehensiveness ceases to be only an abstract principle when there are devices that make objectives, relationships, responsibilities, networks and care decisions observable and revisable.

Community participation forms part of the constitutional architecture of SUS. Law No. 8,142/1990 organises Health Councils and Health Conferences as bodies for participation and social control. The Councils are permanent and deliberative; the Conferences bring together government, workers, providers and users to assess the health situation and propose guidelines for public policies.

This design makes the population participants in formulation, monitoring and control of policies, not merely recipients of services. National and thematic conferences also produce public records of priorities, tensions and proposals that may be studied as material on social participation and policy formulation.

Transversal learning. In complex public systems, participation can constitute a mechanism of governance and information production on needs and priorities, provided that representation, decision-making processes, feedback and effects of participation are concretely analysed.

Decree No. 12,560/2025 defines the National Health Data Network (RNDS) as the national interoperability platform for the SUS data ecosystem. The envisaged processing spans care, surveillance, management, research and public policy and explicitly relates the infrastructure to continuity and comprehensiveness of care. The decree also establishes proportionality, data-subject rights, a data-protection impact report before data sharing and prohibition of secondary use incompatible with legally established purposes.

The National Policy on Information and Digital Health, approved by the National Health Council in August 2026, broadens this agenda to integration of clinical data, telehealth, capacity-building, research and innovation, with attention to reducing regional inequalities and digital literacy. Transversal learning. Technical interoperability is not treated as synonymous with continuity of care: it is infrastructure whose utility needs to be tested through effective use of information, coordination of decisions, equity of access and protection of rights.

Brazil · Decree No. 12,560/2025 · RNDS and SUS Digital Platforms ↗ · Ministry of Health · National Policy on Information and Digital Health · 2026 ↗

The National Policy on Integrative and Complementary Practices in SUS (PNPIC), established by GM/MS Ordinance No. 971 of 3 May 2006, initially incorporated Traditional Chinese Medicine/acupuncture, homeopathy, medicinal plants and phytotherapy, anthroposophic medicine and social thermalism/crenotherapy; subsequent expansions brought the institutional list to 29 practices. The policy emphasises continuous, humanised and comprehensive care, with a strong presence in Primary Health Care.

The ozone therapy is included in the Brazilian list of PICS as a category in its own right. Each practice or system requires characterisation of the object, scientific question and evidence criteria compatible with its nature and use.

The National Policy for Comprehensive Health of Countryside, Forest and Water Populations (PNSIPCFA) explicitly states that access, promotion, surveillance, popular education, participation and social control need to consider specific ways of life, work, exposures and territorial conditions. Its design connects comprehensiveness and equity to populations whose relationships with land, water, forest, production and mobility modify needs and barriers to access.

This policy dialogues with traditional knowledge and practices but does not reduce them to therapeutic resources. Territory may involve environment, subsistence, work, identity, community relationships, exposure and rights — dimensions that require their own questions and indicators.

The National Health Promotion Policy (PNPS) treats territoriality as an operational strategy: planning should consider territorial singularities and specificities, articulate sectors and networks and produce actions attentive to equity, rights and health determinants. The policy also includes research, production and dissemination of knowledge and evidence among its guidelines, allowing territory to be studied not merely as location but as a dimension that may modify planning, implementation and evaluation.

When the question reaches genetic heritage or associated traditional knowledge, another legal layer applies. Law No. 13,123/2015 protects associated traditional knowledge of Indigenous populations, traditional communities and traditional farmers against illicit use and exploitation; for knowledge of identifiable origin, it conditions access on prior informed consent and recognises rights relating to origin, participation in decision-making and benefit-sharing. These requirements have their own legal scope and should not be generalised to every form of community knowledge. Community protocols and traditional forms of organisation and representation should be respected where applicable.

Transversal learning. Territory may simultaneously inform exposure, organisation of care, implementation and rights. The design needs to state which of these functions is being mobilised and which regimes of participation, consent, knowledge protection and benefit-sharing are triggered by the concrete object.

Ministry of Health · PNPS ↗ · Law No. 13,123/2015 ↗

Information production in SUS occurs through systems with distinct purposes, units of record, coverage and forms of access. In Primary Health Care, the Information System for Primary Health Care (Siaps) succeeds the SISAB architecture and organises information originating, among other sources, from records produced in e-SUS APS. The Outpatient Information System (SIA/SUS) records components of outpatient production; the National Registry of Health Establishments (CNES) characterises facilities, services and installed capacity; and TABNET is a public interface for querying different datasets made available by DATASUS.

These systems do not constitute a single or interchangeable database: each serves specific administrative and care purposes, with specific possibilities and limits of coverage, completeness, granularity, temporality, comparability and linkage among records. Source selection follows the scientific question and design.

Use in research. Public and aggregated data may support descriptive, territorial and service analyses. Studies using individual-level data, linkage or restricted access follow their own governance and data-protection requirements and, where applicable, ethics review.

Functional chain. Care record → assessment of completeness and consistency → standardisation/data dictionary → semantic harmonisation → population and denominators → exposure/intervention → territorial and temporal linkage → source integration where admissible → implementation analysis → safety/equity → real-world evidence compatible with design and quality.

Data Quality. Completeness, consistency, validity, temporality, duplication, granularity, provenance, interoperability, missingness, recording and selection biases, and linkage limits should be assessed before inference. Individual longitudinality is not automatically available merely because a system produces data over time.

Implementation Science. Brazilian federative heterogeneity is simultaneously a challenge for comparability and a scientific object: why is an intervention adopted, sustained, adapted or discontinued in certain territories? Which contextual, organisational, workforce, access and population factors modify its implementation? Which components remain transportable and which depend strongly on context?

Brazil has institutionalised a One Health agenda that recognises the interdependence of human, animal, plant and environmental health. The Interinstitutional Technical Committee, established by Decree No. 12,007/2024, coordinates different sectors to prepare, review and support implementation of the National One Health Action Plan.

The Brazilian strategic version organises lines related to institutional capacities, emerging and re-emerging diseases, zoonoses and vectors, food safety, antimicrobial resistance, the environment and social participation. It is an intersectoral approach in its own right: it dialogues with Public/Collective Health and Planetary Health but is not synonymous with either.

Key concept for study. Public/Collective Health emphasises population, social, political and territorial processes and health systems; One Health focuses on human–animal–plant–environment interdependencies; Planetary Health examines relationships between human health and transformation of natural systems at a broader scale. Interfaces are researchable without erasing conceptual differences.

SUS is also an object of international observation. On 27 July 2026, upon receiving an honorary doctorate from Fiocruz, the Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, stated that Brazil's commitment to universal coverage through SUS demonstrated that health can be treated as a right and public good. The statement is recorded as institutional recognition, not as a comprehensive scientific assessment of the system.

Another type of evidence should be distinguished from this recognition: in December 2025, WHO validated Brazil for elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and related the outcome to the long-term commitment to universal and free access through SUS, strong Primary Health Care and a human-rights-based approach. Political-institutional recognition and validation of a health outcome are different categories and should not be conflated.

Transversal learning. Health systems can be studied through their normative and organisational architecture as well as through specific outcomes, distribution of those outcomes, learning capacity and implementation experiences. None of these dimensions, in isolation, describes the entire system.

Ministry of Health · Unified Health System — SUS ↗

Ministry of Health · Family Health Strategy ↗

Ministry of Health · Clínica Ampliada, Reference Team and Projeto Terapêutico Singular ↗

Ministry of Health · HumanizaSUS in Primary Care · Balint-Paideia ↗

Ministry of Health · Conferences and social participation ↗

National Health Council · PNPIC ↗

Ministry of Health · PNSIPCFA · operational plan ↗

Ministry of Health · National Health Promotion Policy — PNPS ↗

Brazil · Law No. 13,123/2015 · genetic heritage and associated traditional knowledge ↗

Ministry of Health · One Health ↗

Federal Government · National One Health Action Plan · strategic version ↗

WHO · Tedros at Fiocruz · 27 Jul. 2026 ↗

WHO · Validation of elimination of mother-to-child HIV transmission in Brazil · 2025 ↗

BRICS cooperation in science, technology and health combines ministerial bodies, thematic working groups, technical networks and joint initiatives. In Science, Technology and Innovation (STI), the Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2015 completed ten years in 2025; the 13th STI Ministerial Meeting, held in Brasília on 25 June 2025, recorded a decade of thematic working-group meetings, young-scientist forums, innovation awards and joint research calls.

In health, the 16th Meeting of BRICS Health Ministers, held in Chandigarh, India, in July 2026, adopted a ministerial declaration under the theme Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability and consolidated cooperation mechanisms in universal health coverage, emergency preparedness, digital health, regulation of medical products, collaborative research, mental health, healthy lifestyles and Traditional, Complementary and Integrative Medicine.

Transversal learning. BRICS makes it possible to observe a cooperation architecture in which high-level political decisions coexist with technical groups, scientific networks, operational documents and thematic initiatives. This multiplicity of scales is relevant to understanding how multilateral agendas can acquire institutional continuity across rotating presidencies.

The BRICS Working Group on Science, Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Partnership (STIEP WG) — the Working Group on Science, Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Partnership — organises innovation and technological-cooperation initiatives. In 2025, the group prepared the BRICS Action Plan for Innovation 2025–2030, subsequently endorsed at the 13th STI Ministerial Meeting.

The 2025 agenda highlighted artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, sustainability, integration of big data and technologyforesight, alongside instruments such as the Young Scientists Forum, Young Innovators Prize, joint research calls and technology-transfer mechanisms.

Key concept for study. Technology foresight broadens the function of science policy: in addition to responding to present problems, it enables scenario-building, identification of emerging technologies, anticipation of needs and orientation of research and innovation priorities under conditions of uncertainty.

The BRICS Working Group on Biotechnology and Biomedicine — including Human Health and Neuroscience — held its 6th meeting on 14 and 15 May 2025 at the Brazilian Center for Research in Energy and Materials (CNPEM), in Campinas. Delegations from Brazil, Russia, India, China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran participated. The agenda included multicentre clinical trials, pandemic preparedness, mental and cognitive disorders, technologies for emerging diseases, bioethics, neuroethics, agricultural biotechnology and food security.

Among the outcomes documented by CNPEM was advancement of a neuroscience cooperation project led by Russia. The attribution is retained here as stated in the institutional communication published by CNPEM in May 2025.

The BRICS health agenda also came to include regulatory and digital dimensions. In 2026, the BRICS Good Practices (GxP) White Paperwas published, consolidating experiences and technical approaches related to good regulatory practices, including principles of good manufacturing, distribution, laboratory and clinical practices. The same agenda supported creation of the BRICS Network of Centres of Excellence on Mental Wellness, coordinated by the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), India.

Transversal learning. The Life Sciences block shows how multicentre research, ethics, neuroscience, regulation, mental health, emergency preparedness and data infrastructure may form part of a multilateral agenda without constituting a single scientific programme. Unity lies in cooperation across related problems while preserving the specificity of each front.

The 16th BRICS Health Ministers' Declaration, adopted in 2026, included for the first time a specific section devoted to Traditional, Complementary and Integrative Medicine (TCIM) and supported establishment of a specialised group on the subject. The agenda encompasses collaborative and multicountry studies, exchange of scientific methodologies and research experience, documentation of good practices, clinical validation, evidence generation, quality, safety, toxicity assessment and pharmacovigilance.

The digital dimension includes knowledge platforms, repositories, databases, interoperability and emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence. BRICS also encourages registration of TCIM clinical trials in registries recognised by WHO and relates its agenda to the WHO Global Traditional Medicine Strategy 2025–2034 and WHO Global Traditional Medicine Centre.

Transversal learning. TCIM appears simultaneously as a theme of research, quality and safety, digitalisation, regulatory cooperation and exchange among knowledge systems. This framing reinforces the need to treat evidence generation and preservation of the diversity of medical systems as complementary dimensions.

The 16th BRICS Health Ministers' Meeting took place in Chandigarh, India, on 23–24 July 2026, under India's BRICS 2026 presidency and the theme "Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation & Sustainability". It was preceded, on 21–22 July, by the BRICS Meeting on TCIM, coordinated by India's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and Ministry of Ayush, with delegations from Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Iran, Russia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates, resulting in the Terms of Reference for the specialised TCIM group. The Brazilian delegation participated in the discussions, with a public statement on the challenges of incorporating integrative and complementary medicine into primary care in SUS, a system covering approximately 200 million people. The 2026 BRICS Health Working Group agenda brought together nine priority areas, including digital-health architecture for continuity of care in remote areas and diseases determined by social factors of health, alongside TCIM.

The diversity of health systems, medical traditions, populations, biodiversity, scientific infrastructures and regulatory environments among BRICS countries creates a particularly rich field for studying transportability and external validity: in which populations and contexts does a result remain comparable, under what implementation conditions, and what adaptations are required across different environments.

Harmonisation and transportability. Harmonisation refers to building shared minimum elements — operational definitions, datasets, quality requirements, analytical criteria, pharmacovigilance and procedures — sufficient to enable comparison. Transportability asks to what extent findings, interventions or models preserve validity when moving from one context to another. The two concepts are related but address distinct scientific problems.

Transversal learning. In multicountry networks, comparability does not require erasing diversity. On the contrary: differences among health systems, populations, products, practices, regulations and territories become relevant variables for understanding external validity, effect heterogeneity and implementation conditions.

BRICS · Declaration of the 13th STI Ministerial Meeting · 2025 ↗

BRICS STIEP · Action Plan for Innovation 2025–2030 ↗

CNPEM · BRICS Biotechnology and Biomedicine Working Group · 2025 ↗

Government of India · 16th BRICS Health Ministers’ Meeting · 2026 ↗

WHO · BRICS and TCIM · 2026 ↗

The IFRC National Society Preparedness Framework establishes a common basis for strengthening preparedness, readiness and response capacity of National Societies. The document emphasises learning, adaptation and coordination and guides incorporation of preparedness into institutional strategies and operations, while remaining relevant to different local contexts.

This architecture is operationalised through the Preparedness for Effective Response (PER)approach, which provides tools and processes to transform preparedness principles into assessment, prioritisation, planning and capacity strengthening. Preparedness thus appears as a continuous institutional process open to revision.

Key concept for study. A framework and an operational mechanism perform distinct and complementary functions: one organises principles and guidance; the other structures processes for assessing and developing preparedness in the concrete context.

IFRC defines anticipatory action as actions intended to prevent or mitigate potential disaster impacts before a shock or before its acute effects are felt. The Operational Framework for Anticipatory Action 2021–2025 systematised this agenda, linking disaster-risk management and climate adaptation.

Within the anticipatory pillar of the Disaster Response Emergency Fund (IFRC-DREF), risk analysis, impacts of previous events, vulnerability data and weather forecasts are used to define triggers. National Societies predefine actions in Early Action Protocols or simplified protocols; when the trigger is reached, the financial mechanism allows resources to be mobilised before the expected impact.

Transversal learning. Anticipation shifts part of the decision from already observed harm to estimated risk. This makes explicit a researchable chain: information → forecast → decision threshold → pre-agreed action → outcome → learning.

The IFRC GO platform maintains an Operational Learning area dedicated to systematising lessons generated in crisis and operations management. The system uses information from IFRC-DREF final reports, Emergency Appeals and other operational sources to support learning about resource allocation, decision-making, communication and protocols.

The IFRC-DREF architecture also incorporates feedback processes and operational reviews. In 2025, the organisation recorded expansion of the operational-learning dashboard, harmonisation of lessons-learned methodologies across anticipatory and response pillars and mechanisms for National Societies' contributions to feed back into procedures and planning.

Transversal learning. Preparedness can be observed as adaptive capacity built over time: preparedness → anticipation → response → recording → learning → adaptation → new preparedness. The scientific value of this sequence lies in the existence of explicit feedback cycles, not merely in the chronological succession of operations.

IFRC adopts a multi-hazard approach to natural hazards, epidemics, technological accidents, population displacement and risks intensified by climate change, urbanisation and emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. National Societies articulate disease prevention and control, disaster-risk reduction, early warning and action, and community preparedness and response.

The Global Climate Resilience Platform organises local climate action around three principal fronts: early warning and anticipatory action; nature-based solutions; and shock-responsive social-protection networks. The platform connects risk management, climate adaptation, communities and territory and includes attention to risks such as extreme heat and community warning systems.

Key concept for study. Resilience can be examined as a dynamic property of social and territorial systems facing disturbances: capacity to anticipate, absorb, respond, maintain relevant functions, recover and adapt. IFRC documentation also makes visible that vulnerability, exposure, local capacity and territorial characteristics modify this dynamic.

The IFRC humanitarian architecture gives centrality to National Societies and local action. Their permanent presence in communities makes it possible to connect territorial knowledge, preparedness, early warning, response and recovery. The institutional principle is that action should be as local as possible and as international as necessary.

This temporal continuity — before, during and after emergencies — makes it possible to observe how institutional and community capacity, trust, information, coordination and resources relate to readiness and adaptation. Preparedness ceases to be merely a condition immediately preceding the event and becomes part of a trajectory of capacity development.

Transversal learning. Localisation encompasses geographical proximity, decision-making capacity, contextual knowledge, relationships of trust, permanent structures and the capacity to convert information into action relevant to the territory.

IFRC · National Society Preparedness Framework ↗

IFRC · Disaster and crisis preparedness ↗

IFRC · Operational Framework for Anticipatory Action 2021–2025 ↗

IFRC-DREF · Anticipatory Pillar ↗

IFRC GO · Operational Learning ↗

IFRC · Global Climate Resilience Platform ↗

IFRC · Global Health Security ↗

In September 2025, the WHO Regional Office for Africa convened, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, two consecutive meetings devoted to defining research priorities, ethical frameworks and regional coordination mechanisms for traditional medicine. The transition from broad agendas to ordered priorities, ethical governance, research capacity and coordination is directly relevant to transforming complex problems into executable research programmes.

WHO regional guidelines for registration of traditional medicines propose criteria for pharmaceutical quality, safety of use and therapeutic efficacy and are directed at regulatory authorities, manufacturers, practitioners and research and development institutions. This framework makes it possible to observe the transition among knowledge and product, characterisation, evaluation, regulation and responsible circulation.

In 2022–2023, HRM Queen Adesewa I Dr Yewande Okunoren-Oyekenu, Abidoba Oyekenu and collaborators developed Air Ambulance Service Models for Disaster Preparedness, a proof of concept proposal linking aeromedical evacuation, telemedicine, health, engineering, Education and disaster preparedness. AWIS San Diego documentation records, along the same trajectory, remote training of 44 adolescents in work experiences in science, health, law and Education, with students participating in construction of Air Ambulance models.

Translational relevance. The project makes it possible to decompose emergency preparedness into population, scenario, response time, clinical capacity, logistics, technology, communication, safety, cost, training and implementation conditions. Collaboration with Abidoba also makes intergenerational circulation across scientific communication, translation, Education and solution design observable.