From questions to institutionalisation – how to embed women’s health priorities in EU research and policy
Europe is investing heavily in digital infrastructure, AI and data systems. Yet these investments could reproduce existing inequities. Women’s health innovation shouldn't be left on the win
In February, The Governance Lab and CEPS convened researchers, policymakers, funders and advocates to advance the next phase of the 100 Questions Initiative: shifting from identifying priorities to operationalising and institutionalising them within the EU.
Below are twelve takeaways for EU stakeholders.
1. Institutionalise question-driven research
Questions determine what’s measured, funded and prioritised. Questions over women’s health must be embedded upstream within EU research frameworks. This could include requiring funded proposals to outline a clear ‘question statement’, alongside establishing a public European Women’s Health Question Catalogue to guide calls, policy design and investment.
2. Frame women’s health as a competitiveness priority
Even with over EUR 2 billion invested across 1,000+ projects under Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe, there are still gaps. Positioning women’s health innovation as a competitiveness driver would align political, financial and private-sector incentives while strengthening Europe’s global leadership.
3. Embed women’s health in the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF)
Women’s health should be explicitly integrated across EU instruments, including the upcoming MFF. Ring-fenced funding, targeted calls and dedicated innovation challenges, potentially via the European Innovation Council, would improve accountability and reduce fragmentation.
4. Establish a Women’s Health ‘Fair AI’ Standard
AI-enabled health tools supported through EU funding or procurement should disclose the sex and gender composition of training data, demonstrate subgroup performance and specify whether they address recognised women’s health gaps.
5. Redesign funding conditions
All EU-funded health research should require sex- and gender-disaggregated analysis and reporting. Where not feasible, justification should be mandatory.
6. Develop EU-wide KPIs
Policy-relevant key performance indicators to monitor progress in women’s health should be developed and linked to funding and evaluation frameworks.
7. Align investment with shared metrics
Outcome-oriented indicators reduce fragmentation and strengthen the investability of women’s health innovation. Establishing common metrics across research, policy and financing frameworks would increase predictability for funders and innovators.
8. Address structural data gaps across the life course
Persistent gaps remain in under-researched conditions and life events such as puberty and menopause. A coordinated EU data strategy should harmonise and standardise life-course and sex-disaggregated data.
9. Increase transparency in health data access
Health data access bodies should publish standardised information on approved requests, datasets used, outputs generated and the proportion addressing women’s health to create measurable accountability.
10. Leverage the European Health Data Space (EHDS)
The EHDS should be leveraged to advance women’s health priorities. Its metadata standards, interoperability requirements and data catalogues should align with clearly defined policy and research questions, particularly in under-researched conditions and key life-course transitions.
11. Make disaggregated data a structural requirement
Sex-, gender- and age-disaggregated data must become a core requirement to prevent male-default assumptions in AI, diagnostics and analytics. Representativeness should be embedded as infrastructure – not aspiration.
12. Build cross-sector partnerships
Advancing women’s health requires coordinated collaboration across public funders, industry, AI developers, academia and civil society.
… and why this all matters now
Europe is investing heavily in digital infrastructure, AI and cross-border data systems. Without deliberate priority-setting, these investments could reproduce existing inequities. The task is not simply to answer priority questions but to embed them in how Europe governs research, data and investment to ensure women’s health innovation is guided by clarity, equity and measurable impact.
Cosima Lenz, Associate Researcher. Stefaan Verhulst, Co-Founder and Chief Research and Development Officer, Director of GovLab's Data Programme. Roshni Singh, Researcher at GovLab.