Day one of the conference focused on just that – how the exposome could help drive policy action for better health in the EU. With growing societal problems, a bigger scientific community, more tools, and political momentum, the exposome can make a real difference today, said Roel Vermeulen, Professor at Utrecht University and co-coordinator of IHEN, “As problems keep on growing, we need coordinated solutions that will keep up.”
Speakers highlighted the key asks of the Exposome Alliance, which aims to position the exposome at the heart of Europe’s future health, research, and prevention agenda. These include:
“People do not experience risks in silos and public policy should reflect that reality. That’s why the exposome is so important. It helps us to move from reacting to diseases to understanding and preventing the conditions that drive them and identifying common factors across diseases,” said MEP Tilly Metz.
Many of the tools and infrastructures to better understand the exposome are already available today. IHEN has gathered 70 tools in its exposome toolbox, also presented at the summit, for exposome researchers across the globe. Other resources were highlighted including European exposome maps and global cohort catalogues. IHEN researchers also presented their interim roadmap for exposome research in Europe.
The roadmap has five strategic goals:
The need for equitable global exposome collaboration was also a key feature of the conference: “In low and middle income countries (LMICs) very often the vulnerabilities and the exposures pile up,” said IHEN ambassador Rafael Buralli, Professor at the University of São Paulo, “We need to strengthen capacities in LMICs to do the same science we do in higher income countries. This is an opportunity to reframe how we do science in different countries.”
The summit also put the latest exposome science in the spotlight, with talks from keynote speakers and young researchers highlighting their newest findings.
Talks covered a wide range of topics, from the new technologies behind exposomics – such as high-resolution chemical screening platforms, geospatial modelling of the external environment and toxicological predictions driven by AI – to key studies on how the exposome interacts with climate action, brain health, and the microbiome.
The conference concluded with a final day that highlighted collaborations in the exposome community and how it led to the creation of the Global Exposome Forum. Martine Vrijheid, Research Professor at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) and co-coordinator of IHEN said: “We’re here to move beyond fragmented silos, and to build a united community for the exposome.”
The meetup, held on September 22nd, 2026, in Cork under the Irish presidency of the EU, addressed a topic of „Strategic Consolidation of the European Research Infrastructure Landscape: Advancing coordinated access and strengthening strategic autonomy over critical research data”.
Scientists say tailored disease treatments require a comprehensive assessment of a person’s lifelong environmental exposures. Jana Klánová comments on the exposome and harmonized protocols for Virginia Gewin's article in Nature's Spotlight.
