REMESOS – Resilient and Mentally Healthy Societies
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the already increasing number of mental disorders and levels of poor mental health and wellbeing across the European Union. Governments have increasingly acknowledged that mental disorders and poor mental health are not individual problems and have rolled out large-scale interventions for mental health promotion and the prevention of mental disorders. To assess their effectiveness, it is necessary to not only monitor how many people are diagnosed with a mental disorder, but also entire populations. The Resilient and Mentally Healthy Societies (REMESOS) project (2025-2028), funded under the EU4Health programme, will find expert agreement on the most appropriate way to measure population mental health across Europe, while also implementing a community mental health intervention to promote mental health on local level.
REMESOS aims to find expert agreement on the most appropriate way to measure population mental health across Europe, while also implementing a community mental health intervention to promote mental health on the local level.
The project is delivered by a diverse consortium of 12 partners from 9 countries, including public health institutes, universities, civil society organisations, and a network bringing together people with lived experience in poor mental health and mental disorders.
REMESOS's two pillars
At it's core, REMESOS focuses on two pillars
- Measuring mental health at population level:
REMESOS will review existing methods for assessing population mental health and identify the most suitable approach. This will allow policymakers to monitor trends, evaluate interventions, and compare outcomes across regions. The measurement tool will build on existing EU surveys and research, ensuring it is reliable, transferable, and relevant to European contexts. With this multi-disciplinary consortium, REMESOS aims to foster collaboration, scale best practices, and provide evidence-based recommendations for policy and practice.
2. Community support through Guided Functional Peer Support (GFP): GFP is a community based intervention from Finland, featured in the best practice portal of DG SANTE. It brings people with lived experience of poor mental health together in peer-led groups. These safe, low-threshold spaces help participants connect, recover, and build resilience. REMESOS will adapt and implement GFP in Greece, Slovakia, Portugal, and Bosnia & Herzegovina, targeting vulnerable groups such as young people, the elderly, migrants and refugees, and socio-economically disadvantaged communities, to improve mental health and reduce stigma. The implementation will involve looking closely at each specific situation, providing training and support, and regularly checking progress to ensure sustainability and replicability across Europe.
Across both pillars, co-creation with people with lived experience is fundamental, ensuring that interventions are shaped by real needs, cultural contexts, and everyday realities.
Expected outcomes
Through its combined focus on community practice, evidence generation, and policy advice, REMESOS will:
- Provide a feasible, replicable, and informative way to monitor population mental health across Europe
- Equip decision-makers with practical tools and recommendations to better integrate and monitor mental health into policies across sectors.
- Improve access to inclusive, non-clinical mental health support.
- Strengthen resilience and reduce stigma in local communities.
- Support sustainability by making its tools, training, and guidelines openly available for replication.
Funding and partners
This project has received funding from the EU4Health research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101233339
- EuroHealthNet
- GAMIAN-Europe
- Kukunori
- Danish Committee for Health Education (DCHE)
- The Netherlands Institute of - Mental Health and Addiction (Trimbos Institute)
- Maastricht University, Care and Public Health Research Institute (CAPHRI)
- European Federation of Psychologists’ Associations (EFPA)
- Prolepsis Institute
- National Institute of Public Health (NIJZ) Slovenia
- Mental Health League of Slovakia (LMHS)
- Institute for Public Health of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ZZJZ FBiH)
- Irmandade Da Santa Casa Da Misericordia Da Amadora Ipss (SCMA)
For questions, please contact the project lead, Hannes Jarke, via h.jarke@eurohealthnet.eu
Other EuroHealthNet projects
Visit our project page to read more about projects that EuroHealthNet is involved in.
