06 September 2023

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Liverpool, Malmö universities, Dundee School of Dentistry winners of 2023 Oral Health Professional Educators’ Practice Green awards

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At the Association of Dental Education in Europe’s (ADEE) annual meeting on Aug. 25 in Liverpool, the organization – with the European Dental Students’ Association (EDSA) and Henry Schein – announced the winners of the Oral Health Professional Educators’ Practice Green Awards, aimed to embed an ethos of sustainability within the education lifecycle for oral health professionals and within their educational and clinical practice settings.  

Faculty campus initiative

The University of Liverpool, United Kingdom, received an award for its campus wide initiatives which draw together core components of sustainability into everyday campus life for staff and students. The university demonstrated it is actively taking steps to look at its impact on climate change and wider sustainable development. Since January 2020, the university has signed an accord committing to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, has developed a Sustainability Strategy and launched a new Climate Plan setting in motion an aim to achieve net zero by 2035. With key activities encouraging reuse, repair, and circular economies, waste reduction, decarbonization of its fuel and energy systems, sustainable travel solutions, and a wide array of educational offers for staff and students on sustainability, they are well on their journey to practice green. 

Faculty curriculum initiative

The University of Malmö Faculty of Dentistry, Sweden, received an award for their commitment to integrating the concept of sustainability and sustainable practices within their undergraduate dental programs to instill within students what these concepts mean and how they can practically apply such an ethos within their practice from graduation. The curriculum’s focus on prevention, use of technologies and green products, and the encouragement of students to be agents for change was clearly demonstrated. Graduating informed students that will practice green is a clear aim of the faculty. 

Faculty procurement and product use initiative

The Dundee School of Dentistry, United Kingdom, received the third award for demonstrating how local knowledge of systems and product usage combined with creativity and imagination can lead to meaningful changes in product usage, waste reduction and an embracing of a reuse, recycle philosophy that has an impact from a sustainable and financial perspective.  

Recognition for international collaboration towards sustainability

The panel decided to honor one additional initiative with a special recognition award. Kings College London Faculty of Dentistry, Oral & Craniofacial Sciences, United Kingdom, and its eight partner universities within the Circle U University Alliance – University of Vienna (Austria), UCLouvain (Belgium), Aarhus University (Denmark), Université Paris Cité (France), Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (Germany), Università di Pisa (Italy), University of Oslo (Norway), and University of Belgrade (Serbia) – were awarded for their international cooperation and knowledge sharing to address real change that has a sustainable impact. The collaborative project acknowledges that climate change is a global concern and as such they aim to reflect and act together on the consequences of climate change to have global impact level changes that lead to sustainable and green practices in both health care and education. 

ADEE President, Professor Pal Barkvoll, said in a news release that the initiatives are to be applauded and show how many opportunities there are to create awareness in health care education and to turn initiatives into action to practice green.

EDSA President Martha Adam said that with students integrated into so many initiatives of the awards, sustainability in health care becomes more and more embedded into the undergraduate curriculum.

The Oral Health Professional Educators’ Practice Green award was named after Henry Schein’s recently launched global program, Practice Green, designed to empower the health care community to positively impact the future of the planet by reducing the ecological footprint and promoting sustainability.

During the ADEE annual meeting, ADEE also announced that the ADEE Graduating European Dentist (GED) Core Curriculum document has recently been updated to reflect competencies in sustainable practice. Going forward, ADEE member schools will increasingly address these competencies in their curriculum. The GED is a consensus curriculum aimed at providing all faculties with a core resource in the devising of learning outcomes to enable an effective curriculum and competent graduating early career practitioners. 

About ADEE

Founded in 1975, The Association for Dental Education in Europe (ADEE) brings together a broad-based membership across Europe comprised of dental schools, specialist societies and national associations concerned with dental education. ADEE is committed to the advancement of the highest level of health care for all people of Europe through its mission statements and by focusing on the standardization and advancement of oral health professionals’ education. It draws membership from within the WHO Europe Region and beyond.  

About EDSA

The European Dental Students’ Association (EDSA) was founded in 1988 and currently represents more than 70,000 dental students from 182 dental schools in 33 different countries. EDSA is a not-for-profit and independent organization that is open to all local or national dental students’ associations in the European region.

About Henry Schein

Henry Schein, Inc. (Nasdaq: HSIC) is a solutions company for health care professionals powered by a network of people and technology. With more than 23,000 Team Schein Members worldwide, the Company's network of trusted advisors provides more than one million customers globally with more than 300 valued solutions that help improve operational success and clinical outcomes. Henry Schein operates through a centralized and automated distribution network, with a selection of more than 300,000 branded products and Henry Schein corporate brand products in our distribution centers. A FORTUNE 500 Company and a member of the S&P 500 index, Henry Schein is headquartered in Melville, N.Y., and has operations or affiliates in 33 countries and territories. For more information, visit Henry Schein at www.henryschein.com.