University Health Management at the starting lineUniversity of Hamburg Signs International Okanagan Charter

5 March 2025, by Newsroom editorial office

Photo: University of Hamburg / Esfandiari

Anna Zerner, Prof. Natalia Filatkina, Prof. Laura Edinger-Schons, and Birgitta Büsch (from left) at the signing of the Okanagan Charter

The Okanagan Charter is an international guideline to promote health at universities and higher education institutions. The charter calls for incorporating health throughout organizations and linking health promotion and sustainability. On 5 March 2025, University representatives signed the charter.

The University of Hamburg is only the sixth university in Germany to commit to the Okanagan Charter and the goal of creating, together with all of its members and incorporating all health-related institutions at the University, an organizational culture that sees health as a community responsibility and works to integrate, with a view to sustainability, health into its infrastructure and processes.

Prof. Natalia Filatkina, vice president for studies and teaching, and Prof. Laura Edinger-Schons, chief sustainability officer, signed the charter. Birgitta Büsch, who oversees Health Management operations, and Anna Zerner, who has overseen student health management, were also in attendance.

"Positive development for the entire University community”

“By signing the Okanagan Charter, we are strengthening strategic goals in the areas of health and sustainability. Our goal is to establish a health-promoting climate of study and work and by doing so to support positive development for the entire university community,” explains Birgitta Büsch. This also marks an important step towards a holistic University Health Management, which Birgitta Büsch and Anna Zerner will coordinate jointly. This will involve more closely connecting student and staff health management to develop a comprehensive concept for the well-being of all of the University of Hamburg’s members.

The Okanagan Charter was passed in 2015 at the Seventh International Conference for Health-Promoting Universities and Colleges. It is the result of work by people from 45 countries. The conference took place in Kelowna (British Columbia). The charter’s name was chosen to honor the indigenous Okanagan Nation that calls this region home. In the meantime, the charter has become integral to the quality criteria of the working group on health-promoting universities and colleges (PDF).