Keynote Speakers

Kadi Lubi (PhD) is a senior researcher at the Institute of Health Technologies of Tallinn University of Technology and head of the Centre for Digital Health. Kadi has applied her pharmacy education for a long period in various roles in the pharmaceutical industry. Academically, she has been active in the field of media and communication, where she defended her doctoral thesis on health communication in 2017. Her main research interests are related to health and illness communication, including the aspects of health literacy and digital health literacy. Her special focus is on how to rethink health, illness and prevention related processes at the individual, system and societal levels.

Professor Hugh McKenna is a general and mental health nurse, formerly Dean of Medical School Development and Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation at Ulster University. He has authored over 250 publications, including 17 books, with his work cited more than 21,700 times. A Fellow of four international nursing organisations, he has received major honours including the Royal College of Nursing’s Outstanding Achievement Award (2013) and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the College of Psychiatry (2014). In 2018, he was named among the most influential nurses in the 70-year history of the NHS.

Professor McKenna has chaired the UK Research Excellence Framework (REF) expert panels in 2008, 2014, and 2021, determining the allocation of national research funding, and has led similar panels in Sweden and Hong Kong. He holds seven visiting professorships, two honorary doctorates, and is a member of both the Academia Europaea and the European Academy of Sciences and Arts.

He currently serves on the UK Department of Health’s Clinical Ethics Forum and chairs the Clinical Ethics Committee of the Western Health & Social Care Trust. He has also been Vice Chair of the Alzheimer’s Society UK, Auditor for the Hong Kong Quality Assurance Council, and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing. In 2023, he was named among the world’s top 2% of scientists by Stanford University. In 2024, he joined the UK’s REF2029 Research Diversity Advisory Panel and delivered keynotes at major international conferences across Europe and Asia.

Sascha Köpke has been full professor for nursing research since 2011, first at the University of Lübeck and since 2020 at the University of Cologne, supervising several PhD students and post doc researchers. His research interests cover quality of care in long term care settings and the development, evaluation and long-term implementation of complex interventions to improve care in different settings. Also, he has performed research on nurse-led decision support and evidence-based patient information. Methodologically, he has performed a number of studies within the context of developing and evaluating complex interventions, including qualitative studies, mixed-methods studies, and randomised controlled trials using a variety of data collection and evaluation methods. Also, as a Cochrane editor and author, he has a strong interest in systematic reviews