Keynote at Future Health Systems Symposium, University of Oxford

On 13 October 2026, Masatoshi Funabashi gave a keynote presentation at Future Health Systems: Securing Wellbeing in a Changing World, an international symposium held at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, in collaboration with Nature Partnerships.

The symposium brought together researchers and clinicians working across different scales of healthcare, from biological tissues and regenerative medicine to public health, social systems and the environment. It formed part of the Park End Collection 2026 Edition, a collaboration between the Oxford Saïd Entrepreneurship Centre and The Mila that brings together perspectives across science, innovation, entrepreneurship and society.

Funabashi’s keynote, “From Treating Disease to Generating Health Across Scales: An Open Complex Systems Perspective,” explored how healthcare can be reconsidered through the relationship between figure and ground.

Modern medicine has developed increasingly sophisticated ways of identifying and treating the visible “figure” of disease — pathogens, tumours, injuries and symptoms. Yet these phenomena emerge within a wider “ground”: immune systems, tissue microenvironments, lifestyles, social structures, food systems and ecosystems.

From an open complex systems perspective, the relevant boundary of this ground expands wherever significant interactions occur. This connects clinical medicine with One Health and Planetary Health, and raises a further question: rather than only treating disease after it emerges, can human activity actively create environments that generate and sustain health?

Drawing on research and implementation of Synecoculture and Human Augmentation of Ecosystems, the presentation introduced examples ranging from biodiversity-rich agroecosystems in sub-Saharan Africa to augmented urban ecosystems in Tokyo. These studies suggest that ecological organisation can simultaneously affect biodiversity, food production, microclimates, microbial environments, nutrition and human wellbeing.

The keynote proposed extending conventional concepts of health towards Generative and Augmented Health — the capacity of interconnected human, social and ecological systems to generate and sustain the conditions for wellbeing across scales.

This perspective positions augmented ecosystems not only as tools for biodiversity conservation or environmental restoration, but as a possible form of preventive and regenerative infrastructure linking ecosystem health, human health and social sustainability.

The symposium featured six expert talks and a panel discussion moderated by John Pickrell of Nature Custom Media, bringing together perspectives from cancer research, regenerative medicine, public health, digital health and complex systems. The discussions highlighted the potential for future healthcare systems to move beyond reactive treatment towards more preventive, adaptive and sustainable approaches.