Sciana: The Health Leaders Network, Cohort 7 Meeting 1

This first residential meeting for Cohort 7 brought together a new group of senior-level health leaders from Germany, Switzerland, and the UK to explore one of the most urgent challenges facing health systems today: how to advance population health in times of scarcity.

Cohort 7 enters the Sciana programme at a moment when leaders are increasingly called to act with integrity, courage, and innovation amidst systemic constraints—whether fiscal, political, or societal. This gathering at Salzburg Global created space to step back, reflect, and begin working together on what new heights in leadership means in the face of these limitations.

Over three days, Fellows were introduced to the Sciana Challenge— a two-year collaborative, applied leadership project. They began identifying critical topics they want to explore, influenced by their own experiences and the themes emerging from the programme: equity, community integration, uncertainty of system reforms, climate change and digital innovation. During the overlap day, Fellows from Cohort 6 shared insights from their Sciana Challenge work, focused on new forms of health, care and wellbeing, offering examples of leadership in action and seeding inspiration for Cohort 7’s work ahead.

Meanwhile, the Future Forum invited Fellows to zoom out and map the megatrends shaping the future of health—economic pressures, climate change, political instability, and technological shifts—while considering what forms of leadership are needed to respond.

Fellows engaged with the three foundational dimensions of systems leadership—the personal, the relational, and the structural—through journaling, team-building exercises, and workshops on systems leadership and change.

Sessions on value-based care, digital innovation, and population health strategy explored the pressures and possibilities of rethinking care delivery, particularly in constrained environments.

By the end of the meeting, Fellows had:

• A clear understanding of the Sciana programme and the two-year challenge journey
• A shared values framework to underpin their collaboration- a foundation for building a community grounded in trust, reflection, and shared purpose
• Deeper insight into the megatrends shaping the three country systems

Evenings featured the signature Sciana mix of connection and candour, including a fireside-style Library Chat with Bettina Borisch and Alwen Williams, Sciana Advisors, offering personal reflections and hard-won wisdom and later a dinner out on the town to close the programme.