AYURYOG: India-UK Joint Centre for Excellence in Integrative Health and Wellness
India Team Lead: Professor Akshay Anand
UK Team Lead: Professor Sumeet Mahajan, Professor Amritpal Mudher, Professor Sabu Padmadas
Collaborators: by invitation (under process)
Vision
To advance research-informed holistic healthcare by integrating the ancient wisdom of Ayurveda and Yoga with modern medicine, promoting physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing across the lifespan and contributing to a healthier, empowered, and culturally connected society with affordable and equitable access to healthcare
About AyurYog
AyurYog is an innovative interdisciplinary research-informed healthcare intervention which integrates Ayurveda or natural medicine and Yoga with modern medicine to provide holistic, person-centred care across physical, mental, emotional and social wellbeing.
A pioneering India-UK collaborative initiative proposed to be led jointly by CCRYN Yoga Centre, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) with Chandigarh Administration and the University of Southampton India Centre, United Kingdom. AyurYog brings scientists, practitioners, clinicians and key stakeholders from higher education institutions, government and industry to tackle the rising burden of non-communicable and communicable diseases, with speed and scale.
AyurYog is grounded in research-informed protocols that complement modern medicine, ensuring safe, cost effective, integrated, and effective quality care and management across prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, clinical practice, and community health.
Rationale
Integrating Ayurveda and Yoga with modern medicine enhances holistic, person-centred care by addressing physical, mental, social, economic and emotional wellbeing. Their strong emphasis on prevention and healthy lifestyles helps reduce the risk of chronic diseases and promotes sustained positive health behaviours.
Evidence-informed Ayurvedic practices and yoga can complement treatment for chronic conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, obesity-related metabolic disorders, cardiovascular diseases, cancers, arthritis, chronic pain, reproductive, maternal and child health, and mental health disorders, as well as provide supportive strategies for evolving conditions such as long COVID. Yoga’s well-documented benefits in stress reduction, sleep improvement, and mental resilience further support overall quality of life.
These approaches also offer non-pharmacological strategies for pain management, stress reduction, improve mobility, and possibly reduce reliance on certain medications when clinically appropriate. In regions where Ayurveda and Yoga are culturally rooted, their integration can foster greater patient trust, engagement, and compliance to care, reducing healthcare costs and promoting knowledge economy of two countries besides generating employment
For ageing populations, AyurYog can provide substantial complementary benefits by focusing on routine, mobility, cognition, and sleep, supporting physical function, mental resilience, overall wellbeing, and quality of life, while also helping manage common geriatric conditions, including musculoskeletal disorders and Dementia. The integration of AyurYog can also enhance patient trust and engagement, particularly in culturally familiar settings, thereby improving adherence and participation in care and empowering the coping skills for caregivers
Mission
- Advance evidence-based research: Conduct high-quality, interdisciplinary studies on AyurYog to demonstrate their role in disease prevention, management, and well-being.
- Bridge tradition and modern science: Combine ancient wisdom of holistic health with cutting-edge biomedical research, social sciences, digital health, and technology innovation.
- Translate research into practice: Develop guidelines, tools, and community-based interventions that bring holistic health into everyday medical care.
- Technology innovations: Use of digital health, AI, and biomedical engineering to design smarter, faster, scalable and more personalized healthcare/research driven solutions.
- Promote global capacity building: Train researchers, clinicians, and students through joint fellowships, conferences, workshops, and global exchange programmes focused on integrative and holistic health.
- Create impact locally and globally: Develop research-informed solutions that work in both advanced clinical settings and resource-limited community contexts.
- Build for the future: Sustain AyurYog through global partnerships, research funding, innovation-driven initiatives, and corporate social responsibility to ensure the Centre’s growth and long-term self-sufficiency.
Core objectives
- Apply AyurYog across preventive, curative, clinical, and community health settings to promote holistic, integrated, and patient-centred care, while developing a rigorous interdisciplinary scientific evidence base of its disease-modifying effects.
- Implement research-informed protocols that safely and effectively integrate Ayurveda and Yoga with modern medicine, that support the delivery of holistic, person-centred care in clinical and community health settings.
- Conduct systematic impact evaluations of AyurYog through randomized clinical trials, cross-sectional studies, and panel studies to ensure safety, effectiveness, and continuous improvements in patient wellbeing and cost effectiveness.
- Strengthen national health policy and advance the goals of Viksit Bharat through rigorous evidence generation, innovative approaches, and excellence in AyurYog integrative health practice.
- Facilitate health promotion and sustained engagement among stakeholders and beneficiaries to empower informed understanding, trust, and meaningful adoption of AyurYog.
Pathways to Impact
The India–UK Joint Centre for Excellence in Integrative Health and Wellness will generate high-quality translational evidence across the disease continuum, from pre-disease risk states to fully developed conditions.
The Centre will conduct pre-disease to disease-conversion trials, alongside comparative and cost-effectiveness studies evaluating Yoga and Ayurveda (AYURYOG) interventions against conventional medical care, to inform clinical practice, health policy, and system-level adoption.
Impact will be accelerated through structured entrepreneurship pathways to standardise, validate, and patent disease-specific AYURYOG protocols, ensuring intellectual property protection and responsible commercialisation.
The Centre will be supported by enabling governance and infrastructure, including establishment by biobank facilities, animal model studies, and advanced Ayurgenomics and Yogagenomics research using multi-omics approaches. International collaboration will be strengthened through joint meetings, conferences, and faculty and student exchange programmes, while an integrative health tourism model will extend global reach, economic value, and societal impact.
Work under progress
AyurYog key stakeholders meeting, PGIMER, Chandigarh 23-24 January 2026
Official announcement, tentatively Yoga Day, June 21, 2026