Happy New Year — Looking Back at 2025 at Nordic Women’s Health Hub
Note from the Hub
This is the first newsletter published from Nordic Women’s Health Hub’s new Substack account.
We know that we have been quieter than usual when it comes to our newsletter. Not because nothing has been happening, but because a lot has.
2025 has been a year of building foundations, strengthening partnerships, and moving women’s health further up the Nordic and national agenda. We are deeply grateful for the trust, energy, and commitment from our community.
This edition brings together key moments from 2025 and is dedicated to reflecting on the year behind us and the year to come.
You can read about:
Partnerships and Societal Visibility
External Milestones
Establishment of the Danish Knowledge Center for Women’s Health
Community Growth
Looking ahead to 2026: A note from our CEO
Let’s dive into 2025
Partnerships and Societal Visibility
By Katrine Skov & Mari Helene Fottland
In 2025, we did not just take part in the conversation on women’s health. We helped shape it.
Across stages, ecosystems and decision-making rooms, we brought women’s health to the centre - connecting people, amplifying voices and pushing the agenda forward. None of our work would be possible without our partners. We are proud of what we have accomplished and grateful for our partnerships. And we are far from done.
February and March: Launch & Women’s Health Investor Summit 2025!
Kicking off with a sold-out launch event which you can read more about HEREfollowed by Women’s Health Investor Summit co-hosted with Angella Invest, we started the year off strong. At the summit we gathered investors, industry, academia and startups to accelerate investments into women’s health and strengthen the Nordic funding landscape. Mark your calendar as we repeat the summit on the 4th of March in 2026.
August and September: TechBBQ & Vision 2040 Workshop
Together with Femtech Studios, we co-created the very first Femtech Lounge at TechBBQ, Scandinavia’s largest tech and innovation summit! A dedicated space to highlight women’s health startups, host conversations and connect founders, researchers, investors and partners around concrete solutions. A week later, at the Danish Parliament, we co-hosted the Vision for Nordic Women’s Health 2040workshop with Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies to create a shared framework. More than 130 participated in shaping the future of women’s health.
October: New HQ, Copenhagen Health Week & Women's Health Week London!
October was a busy month! We entered a strategic partnership with Angella Invest, one of the strongest voices in women’s health investments in the Nordics which also meant that our Hub got a physical address and is now located at Angella Invest’s beautiful office in Copenhagen!
At Copenhagen Health Week, we created a dedicated Nordic Women’s Health Area with La Roar Life Science. A space to spotlight concrete women’s health startups and solutions. Our co-founders Sara Al-Dafaee and Charlotte Nørgaard at CPHHW Industry Day:
The work did not stop at the Nordic borders. Our CEO, Sara Al-Dafaee and co-founder, Vanessa Julia Carpenter brought the conversation to London joining the Trade Council and Invest in Denmark as part of an advisory board ahead of joining the conference ‘Women’s Health Week London’ as purpose partners, and later taking the stage at the Danish Ambassador’s reception.
In doing so, Nordic perspectives on women’s health were placed directly in an international policy and investment context - and amplified across Invest in Denmark’s social channels.
November: Women’s Health Innovation Minisprint at DTU Skylab
In collaboration with DTU Skylab, we hosted a Women’s Health Innovation Minisprint, bringing together more than 40 students, researchers and practitioners together to explore how emerging technologies can make women’s health data more accessible, meaningful and actionable! The challenge this year was hormonal tracking.
Also, together with Women’s Health Horizons we hosted a networking event for the ecosystem at the office of Angella Invest. Did you join?
December: Nordic Charter for Women’s Health
We brought together partners from policy, research and entrepreneurship to co-host the launch of the Nordic Charter for Women’s Health 2040 together with the Nordic Council of Ministers, the Embassy of Denmark in Finland and Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies. A shared commitment to treating women’s health as a right - not a privilege. The charter was shaped earlier in the year through the Vision 2040 cross-sector workshop bringing together more than 130 experts to define shared priorities and ambitions for what comes next.
Read the Charter and watch the livestream of the launch HERE
Throughout the year, we continued to show up in the rooms where decisions are shaped and momentum is built. From panel debates, dialogues and workshops, to institutional recognition by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Innovation Fund Denmark and thought leadership in Børsen, Denmark’s leadning business media, and media exposure in TV2 Kosmopol, where our CEO made the case for a message that many have been pushing for years: women’s health is not a niche - and should never be treated as such.
External milestones
By Anna Hostrup Nørgaard
It is not only in our Hub, that things have been busy. This year women’s health has received more attention than ever both politically and in the population.
In October the Danish Government decided to put down a National Centre of Research for Women’s health. The centre marks a huge milestone, and you can read more about it in the next section.
It was also this year that the study on women’s menopause, KISO, published its results, describing that 97 percent of Danish women experience symptoms during menopause. The study is one of the largest ever on menopause, and highlights how many more women than presumed are affected by menopause.
The political alliance Alliancen for Kvinders Sundhed celebrated its 1-year anniversary in December, the AI supercomputer Gefion was turned on to process a huge amount of data to gain better knowledge on women’s menstrual cycle, pregnancy and menopause, and all five Danish regions budgeted for Women’s health for next year’s budget. Aarhus University established a research network on Women’s Health and the University of Copenhagen hosted a 150-year anniversary for the first female doctor in Denmark, Nielsine Nielsen, highlighting the importance of research in women’s health.
Establishment of the Danish Knowledge Center for Women’s Health
By Kate O’Connor
A huge milestone for women’s health occurred this year with the establishment of the National Center for Research in Women’s Health. It was very welcomed news when the Danish government dedicated a significant sum of 160 million DKK (12.5 million euro) to strengthen knowledge in women’s healthcare over the next four years.
Invest in Denmark has mentioned Nordic Women’s Health Hub, along with the Alliance for Women’s Health, as Nordic frontrunners in women’s health innovation. The Hub participated in a panel debate with the Alliance, hosted by the Women’s Health group at Angella Invest, to discuss how the new funding could be allocated most impactfully. Nordic Women’s Health Hub was present with an NGO and civil-society perspective.
Among the recommendations, the Hub advised that part of the funding should be allocated to environments that actively promote innovation in women’s health — including innovation ecosystems that support the use of existing knowledge from patient organisations.
Such environments can help translate knowledge and ideas into real-world solutions that create value and attract additional funding.
As Denmark is increasingly recognised for its leadership in women’s health, Nordic Women’s Health Hub has played a vital role in advancing this vision.
Community Growth
By Kate O’Connor
Evolving from an initiative into a flourishing non-profit NGO headquartered in the heart of Copenhagen, Nordic Women’s Health Hub is powered by a network of passionate volunteers creating a brighter future for women’s health. Since September this year the Hub’s community has seen an extraordinary growth with the number of active volunteers increasing from 11 to 43.
This expansion includes representation from a diverse range of countries, highlighting the growing interest in the field of women’s health and the drive among ambitious change-makers to put their ideas into action. The volunteers are organized into seven different teams, consisting of three operational teams: marketing, events and communications, and four pillars: partnerships, activism, knowledge and innovation.
Entering the new year, Nordic Women’s Health Hub looks forward to continuing to drive meaningful progress in women’s health together with our inspiring group of volunteers.
Picture of all volunteers from our one-year birthday celebration, as the Hub officially launched in October 2024.
Looking ahead to 2026
A message from our CEO
What you’ve just read is a selection of the work Nordic Women’s Health Hub has carried out throughout 2025. It doesn’t capture everything — but it gives a clear picture of a year where the Hub has grown far beyond what we initially imagined.
In 2025, we have been many places at once. We have helped push women’s health further up the political agenda, while also working deliberately to break down silos between research, investment, innovation, and lived experience.
What matters to say clearly is this: all of this has been built without core funding. The Hub has been entirely volunteer-driven — powered by people who chose to spend their time, expertise, and energy on something they believed needed to exist.
2025 was also the year where we crossed an important threshold. Nordic Women’s Health Hub moved from being an initiative to becoming an organisation in a matter of months. That shift has been happening quietly in the background but it fundamentally changes what we are able to do next.
In 2026, we will deepen our role as a connector across the Nordic women’s health ecosystem, strengthen our work around innovation environments and policy dialogue, and continue to ensure that women’s health is treated as a shared societal responsibility — not a niche.
Thank you to everyone who has contributed to building the Hub so far. I am proud of this community and of the ecosystem.
The next chapter starts now.
