Opening ceremony and initial plenary session: Reimagining oral health professionals’ education

The opening ceremony and initial plenary of ADEE 2025 Dublin. This session includes the opening plenary speaker and ADEE Dental Educators Awards 2025. Delegates are asked to be seated by 15:50.

The context of oral health professional’s education is in a state of flux. Change not only seems to be a constant but also is occurring at a rapid pace with regards to technological and artificial intelligence advances, inter-professionalism and workforce restructuring, social and cultural integration and of course diversity and inclusion. It can at times, as a senior academic, be challenging to step back from the day-to-day workload to reflect on the impact these charges are having on our approaches to education and in our professional practice.

In early 2020, The Lancet established a Commission on Oral Health. A Lancet Commission is a scientific review, inquiry, and response to an urgent and often neglected or understudied health predicament. Lancet Commissions are science-led, international, and multidisciplinary collaborations that aim to achieve transformational change with a particular focus on policy or political action.

The Lancet Commission on Oral Health brings together 27 experts across academic research, policymaking, health and human rights advocacy, and clinical dentistry from 16 countries around the world. These Commissioners collectively have a wide range of relevant expertise and experience in oral and global public health to address the historic policy neglect and system failure of oral diseases. The commission is co-chaired by Richard Watt (UK) and Carol Guarnizo-Herreño (Colombia).

The commission’s early work has identified four key priorities which are underpinned by six cross cutting themes:

1. Governance and advocacy for global oral health. Explore best practices to raise the political and policy profile of oral health and integrate oral health within the wider health policy and development frameworks.
2. Equity, social justice and oral health. Develop improved evidence-based monitoring systems to assess oral health equity, review evidence of effectiveness of interventions to reduce oral health inequalities, and inform policy development to promote oral health equity.
3. Health system reform, governance and transformation. Provide evidence to support policy and decision makers to develop robust and resilient (oral) health care systems across the globe including human resources, payment systems, integrated delivery models, appropriate technology, and minimising environmental impact.
4. Commercial determinants. Highlight and expose the influence of industry and profit motives on all aspects of oral health including education, research, service delivery and policy, and develop appropriate means of minimising this influence and improving the transparency of industry relationships with oral health stakeholders.

We are delighted to have Prof Richard Watt join us in Dublin to share insights from the Lancet Commission and guide us as reflect on recent trends that are shaping the face of oral healthcare professionals’ education and requiring us to reimagine how we approach each stage of the education cycle.