At the recent Association for Dental Education in Europe (ADEE) annual meeting in Liverpool, King's College London's Faculty of Dentistry, Oral & Craniofacial Sciences, United Kingdom, and five of its partner universities within the Circle U University Alliance – Université Paris Cité (France), Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin (Germany), Aarhus University (Denmark), University of Belgrade (Serbia), and University of Oslo (Norway) – were awarded for their international cooperation and knowledge sharing to address real change that has a sustainable impact.

Led by Dr Ana Angelova Volponi, Reader in Regenerative Dentistry in King's, 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. The project was awarded seed funding by King's Circle - U, and is a collaborative project with five other European Dental Schools. 

The Oral Health Professional Educators’ ‘Practice Green^©’ award was named after Henry Schein’s recently launched global programme, 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.

Said Professor Michael Escudier, Executive Dean of the Faculty of Dentistry, Oral & Craniofacial Sciences:

"Many congratulations to the team on their well deserved success! It is important to show oral health and dentistry working within the topic sustainability, and that we also might play an important role within Circle U."

Said Andrea Albertini, CEO of Henry Schein’s International Distribution Group:

“We congratulate all winners for the amazing contribution to a more sustainable dental education and to a healthier future for all of us. I thank all faculties participating in this initiative for sharing the great initiatives they are advancing and for showcasing the important role that University Dental Schools take in helping to establish the foundation for a more sustainable dentistry.”

The project included presentations and reflections from students, including Kelly Sousa Gomes, DTH2 student from King's. Said Kelly on the event: 

“It was a pleasure to attend the Sustainability in dentistry Circle-U project alongside representatives from 5 other dental schools in Europe and it was an even bigger privilege to have been given the opportunity to take part and present my work and research on Embedding Sustainability in the Dental Curriculum. I'm very glad to have been a part of this project and look forward to be involved in future developments.”

The King's team working on the project were: Dr. Ana Angelova Volponi; Prof. Jenny Gallagher; Prof. Kim Piper; Dr. Jonathan Turner; Dr. Jonathan San Diego, Dr. Flora Smyth Zahra and Dr. Francisca Velasquez Cerda.

King’s is part of the Circle U. European University Alliance, a network of nine universities who share a commitment to developing knowledge in service to society and addressing global challenges. Together with our partners in Oslo, Aarhus, Berlin, Belgrade, Louvain, Paris, Pisa and Vienna, we are building an inclusive, research-intensive, and interdisciplinary European University which provides a multi-cultural and multi-lingual student and staff experience.  Find out more about Circle U here: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/internationalisation/global-engagement/circle-u

Watch the project submission video to find out more about the initiative here.