Lancet Insight · 2026
Designing from 2040: vision-led architecture for women's health
Julia Persson · Kristina Gemzell Danielsson · Daria Krivonos
The Lancet Obstetrics, Gynaecology, & Women’s Health
Key Insights
The Convergence Insight
Five independent expert groups — spanning research, care, innovation, governance, and literacy — converged on identical infrastructure requirements without coordination, providing bottom-up validation for the framework's architecture.
136 Contributors 5 Nordic Countries
A vision-led participatory foresight process, developed with the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies, worked backwards from 2040 desired end states through narrative scenarios of three generations of women.
USD 30–50 Billion Opportunity
Closing the Nordic women's health gap is framed as an economic imperative — unlocking productivity gains, reduced healthcare costs, and innovation growth — not merely an equity concern.
The Women's Health 2040 Framework
Three operational domains (Research, Care, Innovation) supported by four shared infrastructure pillars (People, Money, Policy, Data), built on a foundation of Knowledge & Awareness.
Figure: The Women's Health 2040 Framework. Each cell contains validated activities anchored in existing Nordic and European initiatives.
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© 2026 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.
Cite as: Persson J, Gemzell Danielsson K, Krivonos D. Designing from 2040: vision-led architecture for women's health. The Lancet Obstetrics, Gynaecology, & Women’s Health 2026. https://doi.org/10.1016/S3050-5038(26)00014-2
Authors
Julia Persson
Founder of Scita Health and Founding Architect of the Nordic Charter for Women's Health 2040
Copenhagen, Denmark
Kristina Gemzell Danielsson
Professor and Head of the Department of Women's and Children's Health, Karolinska Institutet; Senior Consultant in Obstetrics and Gynecology, Karolinska University Hospital
Stockholm, Sweden
Daria Krivonos
CEO, Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies
Copenhagen, Denmark
About Women's Health 2040
The Nordic Charter for Women's Health 2040 is a vision-led coordination framework developed through participatory foresight with 136 contributors across Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. Published under an open commons license, it provides a replicable methodology for transforming fragmented health systems into anticipatory, data-driven, and integrated care.
Visit the Charter