European Academy of Paediatrics

The EAP Winter Meeting 2025 in Prague brought together approximately 80 national delegates, council chairs, Strategic Advisory Groups (SAGs), Young EAP representatives, and the Executive Committee for two days of structured discussion, reflection, and decision-making.

The Meeting took place over two days and combined strategic discussion, governance, and thematic work. Friday focused on internal communication and training standards, followed by parallel Council meetings and short presentations from Strategic Advisory Groups and networks covering key priority areas, and concluded with a networking dinner to encourage cross-group exchange. Saturday was dedicated to governance, with the European Board of Paediatrics and EAP General Assemblies, including elections and statutory business, followed by open-door sessions of selected Strategic Advisory Groups and Young EAP to support wider participation and in-depth discussion of ongoing initiatives.

EAP Winter Meeting 2025:

Looking Back:  the European Academy of Paediatrics (EAP) in 2025

EAP’s education work in 2025 was intentionally built around continuity: a growing, connected pathway.The year’s flagship educational moment was the  Congress and MasterCourse in Warsaw (October 2025), which brought paediatricians together for clinical updates, cross country exchange, and practice oriented learning rooted in everyday realities. The meeting reinforced EAP’s role as a European convening platform while maintaining a clear focus on relevance for clinical practice. 2025 marked the year of the new  EAP Webinar Series, creating a new channel for accessible, free online education and dialogue. The first webinar of the year, focused on vaccination, was among the most widely attended, reflecting both professional demand and the urgency of the topic. The series concluded on World Children’s Day with a joint webinar delivered together with UNICEF, underlining that child health cannot be separated from children’s rights, protection, and lived experience.

EAP also delivered structured learning for trainees and early-career paediatricians through the Core Knowledge in Paediatrics (CKP) Course(24–25 October 2025) online course, designed to align with the European paediatric training curriculum and support exam preparation. Leadership development moved centre stage with the inaugural EAP Leadership Academy in Leipzig. Delivered in a small group format, this new workshop focused on practical leadership skills, communication, and advocacy capacity. Its strong reception confirmed the value of this approach, with a second Leadership Academy planned in 2026.

Advocacy became more visible and more structured throughout the year, with EAP ensuring that paediatric perspectives reached policy, regulatory, and public forums. At European Union level, EAP engaged directly with the European Commission early in the year, bringing forward concrete priorities related to prevention, child protection, and regulatory decision making, reinforcing the importance of paediatric expertise at the policy design stage. EU facing advocacy also addressed child safety in everyday environments, including initiatives on button battery injuries, highlighting the need for coordinated action across health professionals, policymakers, and industry partners.

International advocacy was strengthened through deepened collaboration with the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe. During 2025, EAP contributed paediatric perspectives to discussions on vaccination strategies, including protection against pertussis and RSV, maternal immunisation, and advocacy for improved surveillance and standardisation of rubella case reporting across the WHO European Region. EAP also supported WHO linked implementation efforts, including dissemination of the WHO Europe Primary Health Care Pocket Book.

A key milestone was achieved in September 2025 whenEAP obtained WHO accreditation as a non State actor, enabling formal participation in WHO Europe regional processes and reinforcing the legitimacy of paediatric professional input into the Child and Adolescent Health Strategy.

EAP’s advocacy voice was also expressed through formal public statements and campaigns. In April 2025, EAP marked World Immunization Week by reaffirming the central role of vaccination and addressing misinformation. On 16 July 2025, EAP issued a Global Call addressing the impact of armed conflict on children, a position formally reaffirmed on 25 August 2025. In parallel, EAP supported practical humanitarian action, including engagement with the infant formula donation initiative for Nasser Hospital and coordinated donations to support participation of Ukrainian paediatricians in EAP educational activities  and care for Neonatal units in Ukraine.

Alongside education and advocacy, EAP placed a strong focus on shared assessment standards. A major milestone was the mid year accreditation of the EBP-EAP Examination by the Council for European Specialists Medical Assessment, confirming alignment with recognised European quality standards. Later in the year, the examination reached a record high point, with 356 candidates from 39 countries participating. In parallel, EAP and Young EAP launched the first phase of Paed STEP survey in collaboration with WHO, generating comparable evidence on paediatric residency structures across Europe to support harmonisation and future policy recommendations.

Looking forward: What is coming in 2026?

Looking to 2026, EAP will carry this integrated approach forward through the MasterCourse in Tbilisi from 30 April to 3 May, the Spring Meeting in Tallinn in May, and CEPAS 2026 in Lyon from 28 to 31 October in Lyon in October, organised jointly with the European Society for Paediatric Research (ESPR). A second Leadership Academy, a renewed Core Knowledge in Paediatrics course, and an expanded webinar programme opening with a focus on childhood obesity will further strengthen capacity building. Among others, the year will also see publication of a landmark EAP study mapping paediatric primary care systems across 42 European countries, providing a robust evidence base for advocacy aimed at strengthening and aligning paediatric care across Europe.

Strategic Advisory Group (SAG): REACH (Refugees and Migrants in Europe – Adolescent and Child Health)

 Chair: Julia Brandenberger

The REACH group has currently 43 members from 20 European countries.   With the funding support of the Academy of Medical Sciences  and the Swiss National Fund, all objectives of the 2024/2025 workplan were achieved, which centered around the Mi-CARE Priority Setting Partnership (PSP). The project aimed to prioritize the most important unanswered research questions in pediatric migrant health in Europe from the perspective of those with lived and professional experience.

Grounded in the James Lind Alliance PSP methodology, migrant caregivers, former migrant children, migrant health workers, and individuals who unite several perspectives (“double experts”) led a multi-phase prioritization project.  In Phase 1, a wide pool of people with lived and professional experience in pediatric migrant health was invited to a Europe-wide, 13-language open-ended consultation, gathering their most important questions to research. Responses were thematically analyzed and consolidated into summary questions. These were checked against evidence and unanswered questions proceeded to Phase 2, a 15-language shortlisting  survey. The top 10 priorities were identified through an in-person consensus workshop, using adapted nominal group technique.

Phase 1 was completed by 256 participants (62% female; 60.9% with lived experience of migration; 23 countries of residence, 41 countries of origin), generating 1,620 questions and comments. These were condensed to 52 unanswered summary questions to be included in Phase 2. Based on the Phase 2 ranking by 576 participants (72% female; 37.2% with migration experience; 32 countries of residence, 50 of origin), a shortlist of 25 questions was created and discussed at the final workshop. The resulting top 10 questions focused on healthcare access (e.g., bureaucratic and language barriers), health effects of migration, discrimination and racism, social determinants of health, needs of particularly vulnerable populations (e.g., unaccompanied minors, undocumented children, children with medical complexity), and family involvement in care. The identified top 10 research priorities offer a roadmap for future  multidisciplinary, and participatory research to improve health equity for pediatric migrants.
Currently, the core manuscript summarizing the Priority Setting Partnership is under review for publication and the governance structure of the SAG is reshaped in order to reflect the partnership of paediatric health workers and migrant experts, which has been built up over the last two years. Based on the top 10 research priorities, a strategic framework is currently developed which will guide the work plan for 2026 and 2027 and consecutive funding applications of the group.

Strategic Advisory Group (SAG): Choosing Wisely

Chair: Corinne Wyder

The Choosing Wisely strategic Advisory Group of the European Academy of Paediatrics (EAP) is a highly active and motivated collaborative network committed to addressing the increasing problem of overmedicalisation in paediatric care, which is frequently unnecessary and may cause harm. The group continues to grow steadily; following each major congress or meeting, new members join the initiative. It currently comprises 35 members representing 20 European countries.

The working group meets approximately every six weeks, either virtually or in person during EAP meetings and international congresses. A major focus of the group’s work over the past year has been the development, translation, and dissemination of the European Choosing Wisely Top Ten list. This list was derived from a large, Europe-Japan-wide survey and identifies priority areas for reducing low-value investigations and treatments in paediatrics.

In collaboration with Professor Suzanne Suggs, Professor of Health Communication at the University of Lugano, and her team, the recommendations were translated into evidence-informed, visually engaging communication materials designed for both healthcare professionals and parents. To ensure wide dissemination and cultural relevance, members of the working group translated the materials into their respective national languages.

The Choosing Wisely materials have been actively disseminated and presented at several major international congresses, including the European Academy of Paediatric Societies (EAP–EAPS) Congress in Warsaw, the European Society for Emergency Medicine (EUSEM) Congress in Vienna, as well as numerous national paediatric congresses across EAP member countries. These presentations facilitated discussion on reducing low-value care and promoted the integration of Choosing Wisely principles into clinical practice.

Following the long-awaited renewal of the EAP website, all materials are now publicly available for download at https://eapaediatrics.eu/choose-wisely/
The resources include multilingual written materials as well as innovative audio content, such as songs and jingles developed by Gabriel Brändle using artificial intelligence.

We strongly encourage the dissemination and implementation of these materials in Switzerland. Broad uptake of Choosing Wisely recommendations has the potential to strengthen physician–patient communication, support shared decision-making, and reduce harmful overdiagnosis and overtreatment in paediatric care.

Authors of the report:

National delegate primary care: Nadja Naef; National delegate tertiary care: Julia Brandenberger; Chair Choosing Wisely: Corinne Wyder