Healers Conclave

The Traditional Healers’ Meet

The Traditional Healers’ Meet 2026 is structured to encourage meaningful dialogue between ancestral knowledge holders and the modern scientific community. The program blends storytelling, scientific presentation, live demonstrations, and policy dialogue to create an immersive learning experience that honors India’s healing heritage while aligning with contemporary research priorities.

Engagement Formats

• Plenary Talks & Case Presentations – Contextual insights from eminent scientists and traditional practitioners.
• Healer–Scientist    Dialogues    –    Moderated    exchanges   enabling   cross- learning.

“Drugs from Nature: Exploring Ancestral Medicine,”

The Traditional Healers’ Meet is one of the key highlights of the 12th International Congress of the Society for Ethnopharmacology (SFE-India), to be held at Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi, from 30–31 October 2025. This special session is designed to bring together traditional health practitioners, healers, and knowledge holders from diverse regions of India to share their invaluable experiences, healing practices, and community-based wisdom in healthcare.

The event provides a unique and inclusive platform for dialogue and mutual learning among traditional healers, researchers, academicians, policy-makers, and students fostering the exchange of indigenous knowledge and promoting the documentation, validation, and integration of traditional healthcare systems with modern science. It reflects SFE-India’s long-standing commitment to building bridges between the oral traditions of the past and the evidence-based healthcare of the future.

For centuries, India’s healing traditions have embodied the spirit of harmony between humankind and nature. Long before the advent of modern medicine, traditional healers served as the foundation of healthcare across diverse communities preserving local knowledge, biodiversity, and cultural identity. Their wisdom, rooted in experience and observation, continues to provide safe, accessible, and holistic healthcare solutions to millions. The Traditional Healers’ Meet, is a flagship platform dedicated to honoring these knowledge holders and integrating their ancestral wisdom into the framework of modern scientific research.

Since its inception in 2012, SFE-India under the visionary leadership of Professor Pulok Kumar Mukherjee, former Director of the Institute of Bioresources and Sustainable Development (IBSD), Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, and Professor at Jadavpur University, has been actively engaged in translating the wisdom of India’s traditional healers into the language of modern science. This journey began with SFE-India’s first international congress in 2012 and has evolved into a nationwide movement to recognize, document, and scientifically validate indigenous healing practices.

The 21st edition of this meet, themed “Drugs from Nature: Exploring Ancestral Medicine,” carries this legacy forward. It seeks to provide an inclusive and participatory platform where traditional healers, ethnobotanists, pharmacologists, clinicians, and policymakers can:

• Exchange experiences and demonstrate ancient healing practices.
• Document medicinal plants and formulations used in indigenous systems.
• Discuss strategies for validation, standardization, and responsible utilization.
• Explore models for community participation, benefit-sharing, and livelihood enhancement.

At its core, the Healers’ Meet embodies SFE-India’s belief that traditional knowledge and scientific research are not parallel paths but complementary forces. By facilitating this dialogue, the program aims to ensure that ancestral medicine continues to evolve—not as an artifact of the past, but as a living, adaptive science for the future.

The meet also underscores the importance of sustainability and ethical stewardship of bioresources. As global demand for natural and plant-based products grows, it becomes imperative to protect the ecosystems and communities that sustain them. Through this initiative, SFE-India seeks to promote conservation, transparency, and empowerment of healers as key stakeholders in the bioeconomy.

The Traditional Healers’ Meet 2025 thus serves not only as a celebration of India’s cultural and medicinal diversity but also as a movement to globalize local knowledge and localize global technologies. It reaffirms SFE-India’s commitment to transforming traditional wisdom into evidence-based, ethically guided, and globally recognized healthcare solutions.

This journey began with SFE-India’s first international congress in 2012 and has evolved into a nationwide movement to recognize, document, and scientifically validate indigenous healing practices.

Over the past decade, SFE-India has:

1. Prepared and continually updated a comprehensive database of traditional healers from nearly all Indian states.
2. Categorized healers’ areas of expertise, covering herbal, mineral, and ritual-based healthcare traditions.
3. Documented thousands of indigenous formulations and recipes used for treating a wide spectrum of ailments among India’s diverse communities.
4. Developed reproducible ethnographic and scientific methods to accurately capture knowledge on these traditional formulations.
5. Identified and prioritized select formulations for scientific validation through robust, evidence-based methodologies.
6. Collaborated with universities, public and private research institutes, and pharmaceutical industries to conduct validation studies through academic programs such as M.Pharm, M.Tech, and PhD dissertations.

Professor Mukherjee’s laboratory, in association with experienced healers, has already initiated several validation studies of traditional formulations. These collaborative efforts not only contribute to academic advancement leading to doctoral research but also create potential pathways for drug discovery and development based on ancestral wisdom.

The 2025 edition of the Traditional Healers’ Meet continues this mission. It will feature interactive sessions with selected healers from across the country, allowing them to showcase their expertise, medicinal plants, and formulation practices before scientists, industry leaders, and government representatives. The meet will serve as a dynamic platform for recognizing healers’ contributions, exploring opportunities for joint research, and identifying formulations suitable for translational development and commercialization.

Through this initiative, SFE-India reaffirms its dedication to preserving, promoting, and protecting the rich heritage of Indian ethnopharmacological traditions, while ensuring their alignment  with  global  standards  of  safety,  efficacy,  and  sustainability. It marks a renewed step toward realizing the Society’s vision of transforming India’s traditional knowledge systems into scientifically validated and socially inclusive healthcare models that can benefit communities worldwide.

Vision

The Traditional Healers’ Meet envisions a future where the ancestral wisdom of India’s traditional healers is scientifically recognized, ethically protected, and seamlessly integrated into the nation’s evolving healthcare ecosystem. It represents the living spirit of ethnopharmacology a bridge connecting the timeless art of healing with the rigor of modern biomedical science.

The core vision of this initiative is to preserve, promote, and protect India’s living heritage of traditional medicine, while ensuring that healers and knowledge holders are recognized as vital contributors to public health, community well-being, and the nation’s bioeconomy. Rooted in the belief that ancient wisdom and modern innovation are not competing paradigms but complementary forces, this program reaffirms the Society for Ethnopharmacology’s mission to unite all stakeholders under one inclusive and knowledge- driven platform.

Purpose and Guiding Objectives

·         Preservation of Indigenous Knowledge

Safeguard the oral traditions and experiential wisdom of traditional healers by promoting documentation, archiving, and digital recording of indigenous healthcare practices across India’s ethnolinguistic and ecological diversity.

·         Scientific Validation and Standardization

Facilitate collaborative research to validate traditional formulations and practices using modern pharmacological, toxicological, and clinical methodologies – thereby ensuring global scientific credibility and patient safety.

·         Integration of Traditional and Modern Systems

Promote dialogue between traditional healers, AYUSH practitioners, biomedical scientists, and policymakers to co-develop frameworks that integrate indigenous practices into national healthcare models through evidence-based approaches.

·         Empowerment and Ethical Recognition of Healers

Recognize healers as equal partners in scientific discovery and innovation. Encourage fair benefit-sharing, intellectual-property protection, and economic inclusion of healer communities through transparent partnerships with academia and industry.

·         Sustainability and Conservation of Medicinal Bioresources

Advocate sustainable harvesting, cultivation, and conservation of medicinal plants to ensure the ecological integrity of India’s natural heritage. Encourage community participation and women’s empowerment in value-chain development.

·         Capacity Building and Knowledge Transmission

Build a national framework for training, mentorship, and intergenerational transfer of traditional healing knowledge through regional workshops, university collaborations, and community education initiatives. 

·         Policy Advocacy and Global Engagement

Support evidence-based policy formulation that strengthens traditional medicine within the national health agenda. Foster international collaborations to project India’s ethnopharmacological strengths in global forums.

Through these objectives, the Traditional Healers’ Meet aims to transform India’s ethnopharmacological legacy into a living, evolving, and globally recognized system of healthcare.

It seeks to ensure that the voices of healers often marginalized yet profoundly knowledgeable are heard, respected, and empowered within the scientific, academic, and policy landscapes.

The vision extends beyond commemoration; it is a movement to globalize local knowledge and localize global technologies for a healthier, more inclusive, and sustainable world.

Key Highlights and Features

Traditional Healthcare Practices – Exploring Ancestral Medicine

• Showcasing authentic healing systems practiced by traditional health practitioners from various regions of India.
• Live demonstrations and storytelling sessions highlighting community-based health practices, plant usage traditions, and holistic therapeutic approaches.
• Recognition of traditional healers as knowledge custodians and frontline healthcare providers in rural and tribal settings.
• Exploring ways to safeguard oral traditions through documentation, mentorship, and intergenerational knowledge transmission.

Expected Outcomes:

• Strengthened visibility and recognition of healers at national and international platforms.
• Preservation of localized healing wisdom for inclusion in community health initiatives.

Scientific Validation and Documentation of Indigenous Knowledge

• Collaborative sessions between healers, ethnobotanists, pharmacologists, and clinicians to record, analyse, and scientifically validate indigenous formulations.
• Inclusion of newly documented formulations in the SFE-India National Healers’ Database, with systematic cataloguing of plants, preparation methods, and clinical observations.
• Discussions on laboratory partnerships and academic research pathways for ethnomedicine-based dissertations (M.Pharm, M.Tech, PhD).
• Emphasis on evidence-based evaluation and publication of validated outcomes to ensure credibility, safety, and reproducibility.

Expected Outcomes:

• Compilation of scientifically documented traditional formulations.
• Formation of multi-institutional collaborations for validation and standardization studies. 

Globalization of Traditional Medicines in Healthcare

• Panel discussions on internationalization of Indian traditional medicines, regulatory convergence, and global trade opportunities.
• Presentations on the role of SFE-India and allied institutions in aligning Indian herbal products with WHO, OECD, and pharmacopoeial standards.
• Interaction with global experts and representatives from partner organizations to share success stories of ethnopharmacology-driven innovation.
• Deliberations on ethical commercialization, intellectual-property protection, and benefit-sharing mechanisms to promote global trust.

Expected Outcomes:

• Roadmap for positioning Indian herbal formulations in global healthcare systems.
• Enhanced collaboration between Indian healers, scientists, and international research networks.

Translational Research Approaches for Promotion and Development of Medicinal Plants

• Showcasing bench-to-field models for developing value-added products from medicinal plants through translational research.
• Case studies on bioactive compound identification, extraction technologies, and preclinical validation of traditional formulations.
• Interactive sessions with scientists and industry experts on bridging laboratory research with community knowledge.
• Exploration of funding and incubation opportunities for ethnopharmacology-based start-ups and projects.

Expected Outcomes:

• Identification of priority medicinal plants for translational research.
• Development of joint research proposals linking healers, universities, and industries.

Promotion and Development of Local Health Traditions

• Recognition of local health traditions (LHTs) as vital pillars of India’s primary healthcare.
• Demonstrations of community-led preventive and curative practices using locally available herbs and foods.
• Workshops on cultivation, sustainable sourcing, and conservation of medicinal plants used in LHTs.
• Empowering healers through training on quality assurance, documentation, and entrepreneurship in herbal product development.

Expected Outcomes:

• Strengthened community participation in healthcare and resource management.
• Framework for integrating local health traditions with mainstream AYUSH and public- health systems.

Collective Outcome and Legacy

Together, these five thematic pillars embody the true spirit of SECON 2025 — to globalize local knowledge and localize global technologies.

The Traditional Healers’ Meet will serve as a living bridge between tradition and innovation, community and science, and heritage and modern healthcare, ensuring that India’s ancestral medicine continues to guide the journey toward a sustainable and inclusive future.

Target Audience

The Traditional Healers’ Meet 2025 welcomes a diverse and dynamic community of participants united by a shared passion for traditional medicine, ethnopharmacology, and medicinal plant research. The program is designed to foster interdisciplinary learning, mutual respect, and meaningful collaboration among all stakeholders in the field of natural product– based healthcare.

The event is open to registered delegates from across academia, industry, and traditional systems of medicine, including:

• Students and Research Scholars – pursuing undergraduate, postgraduate, doctoral, or postdoctoral studies in pharmacognosy, phytochemistry, ethnobotany, ethnopharmacology, Ayurveda, and allied disciplines.
• Faculty Members and Scientists- from universities, research institutions, and laboratories engaged in medicinal plant research, drug discovery, and validation of traditional formulations.
• Traditional Health Practitioners and Healers – representing local health traditions, community medicine, and ancestral healing practices from diverse regions of India.
• Healthcare Professionals and AYUSH Practitioners – interested in integrating traditional knowledge into modern therapeutic frameworks.
• Industry Professionals and Entrepreneurs – from the herbal, nutraceutical, and natural product sectors seeking opportunities for collaboration, innovation, and evidence-based product development.

The Traditional Healers’ Meet encourages active participation, dialogue, and partnership among all delegates. By connecting traditional wisdom with modern research and industrial innovation, the program aims to cultivate a holistic ecosystem for knowledge exchange and capacity building in ethnopharmacology.

Together, this diverse audience will help shape the roadmap for ethical documentation, scientific validation, and global promotion of India’s medicinal heritage.

Legacy of the Traditional Healers’ Meet: A Decade of Preserving India’s Living Knowledge

The Traditional Healers’ Meet has been one of the most visionary and impactful initiatives of the Society for Ethnopharmacology (SFE-India) since its inception. Conceived under the dynamic leadership of Prof. Pulok K. Mukherjee, the meet was first introduced during the early years of the Society’s formation to provide a national platform where grassroots healers and modern scientists could share a common stage, bridging ancestral wisdom with contemporary scientific research.

Since the first International Congress of SFE-India held in Kolkata (2012), every edition of the Healers’ Meet has reflected the Society’s unwavering commitment to recognizing

traditional healers as custodians of invaluable community health knowledge. These gatherings have celebrated the wisdom of practitioners from remote tribal regions, forest communities, and rural areas who have safeguarded centuries-old therapeutic traditions.

Over the years, the Healers’ Meet has evolved from a modest dialogue forum into a structured knowledge-exchange movement – inspiring ethnopharmacologists, policymakers, and industry stakeholders to jointly document and validate ancestral formulations for modern use.

Highlights from Past Editions