Our Mission |
Who we are |
Our mission is to transform the health of individuals, communities, and the planet through deeper understanding of the interdependence of all systems and by promoting awareness, attitudes, and actions required for meaningful, collaborative change.
Our agendaWe seek to underscore the connections between personal, environmental, economic, social, and spiritual health—and awareness that our current global planetary health challenges are intertwined. We promote holistic and integrated perspectives for novel solutions and values that promote cultural change.
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The Nova Network is an initiative of the Nova Institute for Health and welcomes anyone trying to make a difference in the world—including researchers, creatives, advocates, community organizers, educators, clinicians, policymakers, and young people, across the arts and sciences—to co-create a culture of belonging for meaningful progress.
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What we do
- We create new opportunities for collaborative discourse, ideas, and action—to engage rich expertise, integrate research, encourage diverse perspectives, and nurture relationships for creative solutions.
- Our events include international conferences, virtual “campfire” discussion forums, and in-person workshops, retreats, and other events.
- We have ongoing real-time engagement and dynamic interaction on the Nova Integration Hub, the Nova Institute’s web-based forum (to be launched in November 2022) that provides a platform for knowledge sharing, nourishing activities, and mentoring connections for early career researchers.
OUR AFFILIATED JOURNAL
Challenges is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed, open access journal that welcomes contributions to any problem, or any aspect of the “grand challenges” facing our world and our societies today. It addresses the pressing need to accelerate integrated cross-sectoral discourse toward collaborative solutions to improve every aspect of life on our planet. It provides a key avenue for the Nova Network to share diverse and original research, perspectives, and viewpoints, including the “Nova Interview” with leading experts from different fields.
PROGRESS THROUGH CULTURAL CHANGE
The Nova Network encourages a culture of mutualism, trust, and authenticity to generate new opportunities through collaboration, ingenuity, and creativity for meaningful growth and shared benefits across all scales—beginning at the grassroots. We seek to normalize and place greater value on wisdom, empathy, kindness, hope, love, creativity, and respect—the deeper values that unite, empower, and refocus priorities of individuals and groups towards shared solutions.
MEMBER BENEFITS
- Quarterly email newsletters, plus special news bulletins
- Discounts to special events, conferences, and “member only” events
- Eligibility to apply for travel grants for in-person annual conferences
- Eligibility to apply for collaboration grants
- Eligibility to apply for grants to support publication costs for work performed in collaboration with the Nova Institute
- Designation as Network Member and access to a private group on the Nova Integration Hub (to be launched in November 2022)
- Opportunities for projects, research, and publications to be highlighted in quarterly Network bulletin
- Nova Network member affiliation may be included in bylines and publications according to the following guidelines
- We strongly encourage members to cite their Network affiliation on publications as: “Member of the Nova Network, Baltimore, MD 21231, USA”.
- This may include any work, particularly projects or ideas inspired by engagement with the Network, in addition to specific collaborations as a result.
- When this is in use, please inform us, so that we can promote your work!
Nova network origins and history
The Nova Network was created in 2022 and is a realization of the decades-long outreach efforts of both the Nova Institute for Health and inVIVO Planetary Health. Recognizing the importance of collective actions and an expanded reach based on values, wisdom, and relationships, inVIVO Planetary Health and the Nova Institute began working closely together in 2020. The inVIVO initiative sunset in November 2022 when it became part of the Nova Network, which is directed by Susan Prescott.
In 2012, Professor Susan Prescott, MD, PhD, founded a new initiative that called for creative, integrated, ecological solutions for the health of all systems at all scales as a transdisciplinary response to the Worldwide Universities Network’s Global Challenges. Known as inVIVO Planetary Health, its members were among the first to provide evidence that the ecology of the early environment—including microbial diversity, nutrition, toxins, nature relatedness, social interactions, and early life adversity—has life-long and transgenerational implications for all aspects of well-being and resilience. |
"To restore human health, we must restore the health of our society and our relationship with the natural environment—with a greater sense of unity, place, and purpose—from the first moments of life."
Susan L. Prescott, Founder and President, inVIVO Planetary Health (2012-2022) |
Please visit the inVIVO site to see favorite moments of past gatherings and more.
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