Throughout here recent career Ilona Kickbusch was one of the driving forces to propose a strong role for Europe in global health. She created Global Health Europe which was initially managed by the Global Health Centre in Geneva. One of the outcomes of the advocacy work was the EU Council Conclusions on the EU role in Global Health 2010.

She has published in 2016 with Thea Emmerling a book on Europe’s role in global health “The European Union as a global health actor”. She is now part of an initiative for a European Health Union by the European Health Forum Gastein europeanhealthunion.eu - here she argues for a strong global dimension of e EHU.

Under the Finnish EU Presidency, a new initiative to strengthen the European role in global health has emerged and an expert group has been established. A paper to take the discussions is now available from the Global Health Centre at the Graduate Institute, Geneva. She has since been advising consecutive EU presidencies and the European Commission on global health. On 30^th November 2022 the European Commission adopted a new European Global Health Strategy.

She has recently been re-elected to be the vice president of the Advisory Board of the European Health Forum Gastein.

COVID-19 Pandemic
Ilona Kickbusch has contributed some blogs on the response of the European Union to the COVID-19 pandemic.
They include:
Much at stake as EU battles COVID-19
The Big European Shut Down 
EU: Strongly United for Health—Deeply Divided on the Economy
COVID-19 is Smoke and Mirrors—What Matters is International Law