At a commemorative symposium honoring Professor Friedrich Wilhelm Schwartz, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen reflected on the significant influence Schwartz had on her career and the broader field of public health. Addressing an audience that included academic leaders, alumni, and colleagues, von der Leyen described Schwartz as a visionary who embraced new approaches to teaching and research.
Von der Leyen shared a personal story from her time as a student under Professor Schwartz. She recounted how he enabled her to complete a required traineeship remotely during her pregnancy by pioneering web-based seminar formats with universities in Europe and Canada—a notable innovation in the mid-1990s. “He thought collaboratively, he thought ahead. He wanted to solve problems – pragmatically and unpretentiously. Even if they were the problems of a mere student. And it worked,” said von der Leyen.
She emphasized Schwartz’s commitment to ethical and social values in healthcare: “For him, good care and good prevention was always key to good public health. Based on reason and evidence. He firmly believed that every individual life counts.”
Reflecting on global health progress since 2000, von der Leyen cited achievements such as reduced maternal mortality rates by 40%, halved child mortality under five years old, eradication of smallpox, and over 150 million lives saved through vaccines in the past 50 years according to WHO data.
However, she warned that these advances are threatened by current global instability: “The world has fallen – we all feel it – into a state of disorder. Wars and geopolitical instability are spreading hunger and diseases.” Von der Leyen also highlighted climate change as an emerging risk for public health.
The address outlined four pillars needed for continued progress: global responsibility, foresight, innovation, and trust. On global responsibility, she pointed out Europe’s role as the largest financial contributor to the World Health Organization (WHO), pledging over EUR 680 million in three years as part of Team Europe support efforts. The EU has also committed EUR 2 billion to Gavi Vaccine Alliance funding and increased its contribution to fighting AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria by 30% after the pandemic.
Von der Leyen described ongoing projects supported by EU initiatives such as Global Gateway—including BioNTech’s vaccine production facilities in Rwanda with German backing—and similar collaborations across Africa and Latin America aimed at strengthening local medical capacity.
On foresight in public health policy, she noted lessons learned during COVID-19 regarding supply chain dependencies for essential medicines like paracetamol: “Europe has taken steps towards doing much of this since the pandemic… We have put health policy at the heart of European politics.” Measures include establishing HERA (the EU Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Agency) modeled after US ‘DARPA for health’, monitoring wastewater for pathogens, expanding vaccine production networks capable of rapid scale-up within 100 days for new threats.
Addressing innovation’s role—particularly artificial intelligence—von der Leyen announced a new strategy launched in October focusing on deploying AI across industries including healthcare: “A network of AI-supported screening centres makes it possible to detect cancer and cardiovascular diseases earlier.” She stressed maintaining patient rights while advancing technology: “Innovation must serve people and not the other way round.”
Trust was identified as another crucial pillar amid rising misinformation about medical science online: “The information space has become a battlefield… It destroys one of the most valuable pillars we have: trust.” Von der Leyen detailed measures being taken at EU level—early identification of misinformation campaigns online; rapid response with fact-checkers; educational initiatives for professionals—to counter disinformation about vaccines or treatments.
Finally, von der Leyen referenced increasing interest among international researchers seeking opportunities within Europe following recent EU academic freedom initiatives—highlighting significant increases in postdoctoral fellowship applications from both within Europe (up 22%) and abroad (up 55%), along with quadrupled applications from non-European countries for advanced research grants.
She concluded that reinforcing global responsibility, foresight, innovation power, and trustworthiness will help sustain future progress in public health inspired by leaders like Professor Schwartz: “If we continue to strengthen [these] pillars… then I do not fear for the future.”
