SDG 3 : Good Health and Well-Being

Health-promoting universities work from a simple premise: that a campus's policies and physical spaces should make healthy choices the easy choices, not just the encouraged ones. The 2015 Okanagan Charter set out that vision for higher education a decade ago. 

In June 2025, UL hosted the International Health Promoting Campuses Conference, bringing together more than 400 delegates from 24 countries and 80 institutions. Held from 16 to 19 June, the conference marked the tenth anniversary of the Okanagan Charter and brought together researchers, practitioners, students and policymakers working on health and wellbeing in higher education. The programme included keynote presentations, workshops, parallel sessions and opportunities for international collaboration and knowledge exchange. 

The conference also provided the setting for work on the Limerick Framework for Action, developed through a wider co-creation process to support the next phase of health-promoting campuses. Estimated regional economic impact €565,000.

The 2015 Okanagan Charter set out a broad vision for health-promoting universities. Ten years later, an international consultation identified continuing challenges around implementation, evaluation, governance and clarity of language. The Limerick Framework for Action was developed in response. 

The Framework was developed through an international co-creation process. Over 500 people from 45 countries participated in the consultation survey, generating more than 2,000 contributions. This was followed by interviews and focus groups, with further consultation during the International Health Promoting Campuses Conference hosted at UL in June 2025. 

The resulting Framework was finalised following the conference and officially launched on 1 December 2025 at an event co-hosted by the Higher Education Authority, UL and the International Health Promoting Campus Network. 

Taking a whole-system approach, it recognises the interconnected relationship between people, place and planet and supports institutions to embed health and wellbeing across governance, teaching and learning, research, campus environments and community engagement.

Finding practical ways to build movement into everyday routines can support both physical health and more sustainable travel. 

At UL, the CycUL Bike Rental Scheme gives students affordable access to bicycles for travelling to and from campus and around Limerick. Demand remained strong in 2025, with 367 expressions of interest across two semesters. 

Among 20 students who completed a programme evaluation, participants reported cycling an average of 5.3 times per week; all were satisfied with the scheme, and 80% reported a positive impact on their physical health. 

CycUL also received national recognition through its inclusion in UL's case study in the Government of Ireland's Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) to 2030: 2nd Report on Progress, which highlighted the scheme as an initiative supporting access to sustainable transport.

Alongside CycUL, the Dirty Dozen campaign encouraged students and staff to connect movement, study breaks, and mental wellbeing, generating more than 7,600 online engagements during 2025.

For many staff and students, studying or working on campus can involve long periods of sitting, while travelling by car or bus can mean there is little physical activity built into the journey. 

University of Limerick’s (UL) Smarter Travel programme uses Walktober to encourage the campus community to make walking a more regular part of everyday life.

 During October 2025, more than 400 students and staff across UL took part in the month-long walking challenge, three times the number who participated in the previous year. Participants counted their steps and competed throughout the month, encouraging them to walk more during the working or study day. For some, the challenge also provided an opportunity to try walking to campus instead of driving. 

Walktober was supported by a physical launch and weekly campus community walks. As well as encouraging physical activity, these created opportunities for people to meet and walk together, supporting the social side of wellbeing and helping new students, international students and new staff to make connections on campus. 

The initiative involved the National Transport Authority, UL Environmental Society, Irish Society, Department of Gaeilge, the Smarter Travel Officer and Buildings and Estates.

Mercury pollution can persist and travel far from its original source, accumulating in fish and exposing communities through the food chain. The devastating mercury poisoning in Minamata, Japan, demonstrated what can happen when industrial pollution reaches water and is allowed to accumulate in ecosystems. 

The Minamata Convention on Mercury is a legally binding international treaty created to protect human health and the environment from human-generated mercury emissions and releases. It shifts the focus from responding after harm has occurred towards preventing mercury pollution through coordinated international action. 

In 2025, the Government of Ireland nominated University of Limerick (UL) Associate Professor Yvonne Ryan to the Convention's Open-Ended Scientific Group, which is contributing scientific evidence to the first evaluation of the Convention's effectiveness. Dr Ryan was one of only two EU nominees. 

The group held 16 online meetings as part of the evaluation process and met in Minamata, Japan, in March 2025. Participants also visited the Municipal Museum of Minamata Disease, connecting the scientific assessment of present-day international action with the human consequences that led to the Convention's creation.

Reducing exposure to ultraviolet radiation is an important part of preventing skin cancer, but sun protection depends not only on awareness but also on having practical ways to act on that knowledge.

In 2025, University of Limerick's Healthy UL initiative worked with the HSE Mid West and partners across the University to introduce the SunSmart Campus initiative, bringing sun-safety education and practical access to sunscreen into the campus environment. 

Eight dispenser boards providing SPF50 sunscreen were introduced at key outdoor locations across campus, with a further four planned for UL Sport. The initiative was accompanied by sun-safety education, including a dedicated session for outdoor workers. The project brings prevention into the places where people spend time outdoors rather than relying solely on individuals to remember or provide their own sun protection. 

It involved Healthy UL, HSE Mid West, the National Cancer Control Programme, Buildings and Estates, Health and Safety, UL Sport, UL Evolve, the Student Health Centre, Students' Union and Dermatology at University Hospital Limerick.

Pregnancy can bring significant changes to mental and emotional wellbeing, yet women may have limited access to practical, evidence-informed tools they can use themselves. 

Researchers at the University of Limerick's Irish World Academy of Music and Dance and Department of Nursing and Midwifery have worked with midwives, music therapists and perinatal psychiatrists to explore the role of music in perinatal care (during pregnancy and after birth). 

The research responded to a gap identified by Dr Tríona McCaffrey: while the HSE recognises music as a tool for wellbeing in pregnancy, no resource existed for pregnant women on how to use it effectively for this purpose. Mums Using Music (MuM) was initially offered online to pregnant women in 2023. Its in-person follow-on, MuM-Community, was co-designed with a Public and Patient Involvement Panel of local women with lived experience of pregnancy. 

A four-week programme at Northside Family Resource Centre (NFRC) in Ballynanty, Limerick, was attended by five pregnant women between 18 and 35 weeks' gestation and facilitated by a midwife from the Specialist Perinatal Mental Health Service at University Maternity Hospital Limerick and two local music therapists. The programme made NFRC the first of Ireland's 121 Family Resource Centres to offer this early intervention in pregnancy. 

MuM-Community was funded through Research Ireland's New Foundations 2024 scheme. Impact and significance MuM-Community moved the research into a community setting in 2025, establishing a care pathway between the Family Resource Centre programme and the Specialist Perinatal Mental Health Service. 

The pilot also led to discussions with HSE Midwest Mental Health and HSE Health Promotion and Improvement about wider delivery of the programme.

Supporting safer campus travel involves practical measures to help road users see and be seen. 

University of Limerick's Smarter Travel programme won the Best Employer-led Road Safety Programme Award at the 2025 Road Safety Authority (RSA) Leading Lights in Road Safety Awards. 

The Road Safety Authority recognised the team's work promoting road safety to all road users, particularly cyclists, including engagement with hundreds of students and staff through campus stalls and safety initiatives and the distribution of hundreds of free bike lights. The 2025 award was UL's sixth RSA Leading Lights award since 2014, reflecting sustained external recognition of its road-safety activity.

Universities can support health and wellbeing through individual programmes and campaigns, but Healthy University of Limerick's (UL) own assessment is that these are not enough on their own. 

Creating a healthier university also depends on how the institution plans, makes decisions, develops its environments and supports its community day to day. 

Launched in 2025 following extensive consultation with students, staff and external stakeholders during 2024, Healthy UL 2.0 is the next phase of UL's whole-university approach to health and wellbeing. It provides a framework for action across two interconnected areas: Healthy University Actions, focused on leadership, governance, systems and institutional infrastructure, and Healthy People and Environment Actions, covering Mental Health and Wellbeing, Physical Activity, Healthy Eating, Sexual Health and Wellbeing, Substance Use and Gambling, and Healthy Environments. 

The framework is designed to connect implementation, evaluation and research with wider institutional change.

A public talk during University of Limerick (UL) Research Week 2025 explored a less familiar side of serotonin, examining how serotonin and immune signalling can influence the development of cancer, including cancers caused by viruses. 

Dr Jeremiah Stanley and Dr Aisling Ross of the University of Limerick's School of Medicine delivered the free public talk on 28 April 2025. While serotonin is widely associated with mood and antidepressants, the session explored its less widely understood roles in immunity, cancer biology and viral infection. 

Opening with an audience quiz, the event was the first research talk following the week's formal opening address and filled a 50-seat theatre. It was also one of five events selected from a programme of 25 for UL's Research Week launch announcement, which subsequently received regional media coverage. 

Public engagement with the research continued in November with an article by Dr Stanley in The Conversation, written for a general readership and available for republication under a Creative Commons licence. The article was subsequently republished internationally, including by MedicalBrief in South Africa, and had recorded 42,462 reads. 

The underlying research is funded through a Horizon Europe Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowship.

When a person in a health or social care setting displays challenging behaviour, traditional responses can focus on managing or stopping the behaviour itself.

Collaborative and Proactive Solutions (CPS) takes a different approach: practitioners work with the person to identify the problems contributing to the behaviour and find solutions collaboratively, rather than relying on punitive responses. 

In 2025, University of Limerick's Centre for Implementation Research (CIRcUL) worked with the Health Service Executive (HSE), Muiriosa Foundation and Dr Ross Greene, developer of CPS, to support the introduction and implementation of the model in Ireland. CIRcUL brought practitioners and stakeholders together to build understanding of CPS and supported organisations as they began putting the approach into practice. 

This work culminated in a national CPS conference on 14 October 2025, where CIRcUL's Director, Laura Keyes, delivered a keynote on the barriers, enablers and strategies involved in implementing the model. International research on CPS has reported improvements in behaviour and relationships with caregivers, alongside reductions in discipline referrals, suspensions, restraints and seclusions. 

This evidence provides the basis for exploring how the approach can be used in Irish health and social care settings.

Distracted driving is a particular concern among younger and less experienced road users. National Road Safety Reimagined approaches the issue by asking young people themselves to develop creative ways of communicating road-safety messages to their peers. 

In April 2025, University of Limerick (UL) hosted the National Road Safety Reimagined Showcase and Award Ceremony at the University Concert Hall. 

More than 1,000 students from UL, Maynooth University, South East Technological University, University of Galway and University College Cork developed marketing campaigns aimed at 18- to 25-year-olds. Developed and led by Dr Christina O'Connor of Kemmy Business School and Sergeant Tony Miniter of Limerick Roads Policing Division, the initiative is now in its third year and has engaged more than 2,500 students since it began at UL. 

The 2025 showcase also secured 50 media placements across national, regional and local outlets. The work travelled beyond the student competition itself. 

An Garda Síochána subsequently used the winning student artwork in its road-safety communications, including a segment on RTÉ's Crimecall and a national Virgin Media news bulletin.

Ireland's new alcohol health-warning labels are intended to give consumers clearer information about risks, including liver disease and cancer. But introducing a warning does not necessarily tell us whether people notice it, understand the risks differently or change their behaviour. 

In 2025, University of Limerick researchers began designing two complementary studies to investigate those questions. 

A longitudinal study will follow participants across the island of Ireland for 12 months, examining drinking behaviour, knowledge and risk perception. 

Recognising the prominence of pub drinking culture in Ireland, a smaller companion study will examine responses to warning information in a real-world pub setting where participants attend as normal. The research will examine effects across the wider population as well as differences by age, gender and drinking behaviour, and among groups including pregnant women. 

The project was at the study-design stage in 2025, with data collection planned across 2026 and 2027.

Mental health challenges such as stress, anxiety and loneliness affect many members of university communities but can often remain unspoken because of stigma or fear of judgement.

The Elephant in the Room sculpture was designed to make that silence visible and create opportunities for open conversation. BeWell@UL, on behalf of the Human Resources Division and in conjunction with Cornmarket Insurance, brought the Elephant in the Room sculpture, inspired by Brent Pope's national initiative, to the University of Limerick (UL) in August 2025. 

Rather than remaining in one location, the sculpture travelled across campus during the year. It was displayed at UL Plaza during graduations and open days, the Foundation Building during University Concert Hall events, the Human Resources corridor, the Glucksman Library, including during exam study time, and the annual BeWell@UL WellFest event. 

The sculpture was accompanied by a stand providing QR codes and details of organisations offering mental-health support to staff, students and visitors. Its presence in different campus settings was intended to make mental-health messaging and information about available supports more visible and to encourage conversations about stress, anxiety and emotional wellbeing.