Scaling up innovation for active and healthy ageing

Topic description

Specific Challenge:

The European Commission has promoted scaling up of digital innovation for active and healthy ageing both with research and innovation funding under Horizon 2020 and previous Framework Programmes and with its support for stakeholder partnerships like the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing with its Regional Reference Sites.

In its Communication on “enabling the digital transformation of health and care in the Digital Single Market, empowering citizens and building a healthier society” (COM/2018/233 final) the Commission sets out a number of measures for the large-scale use of digital tools for citizen empowerment and person-centred care which are of high relevance for active and healthy ageing. These measures depend on active contributions from local and regional ecosystems, stakeholder groups and organisations including industry, civil society, academia and public administration.

The specific challenge is to facilitate active contributions (in the form of institutional, technological and behavioural change) from all stakeholders to continue on a path towards large-scale deployment of innovative solutions for active and healthy ageing.

Proposals are expected to define mechanisms to facilitate further uptake by actively involving partners from the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy ageing as well as other relevant stakeholder groups (e.g. Joint Programming Initiative on More Years Better Lives, Active and Assisted Living programme, EIT Digital and EIT Health), and research and innovation projects, at European, national and regional levels.

The work will build on previous actions and have a clear focus on the successful support to supply and demand sides in implementing scaling up strategies for innovative solutions (technology, integration of health and social care, systemic change). In particular, complementarity and consistency should be ensured with the outcomes, guidelines and strategies delivered in projects funded from SC1-HCO-17-2017 (“Support for large scale uptake of Digital Innovation for Active and Healthy Ageing”), SC1-HCC-01-2018 ("Supporting investment in smart living environments for ageing well through certification") and SC1-HCC-05-2018 (“Support to a Digital Health and Care Innovation initiative in the context of Digital Single Market strategy”).

A particular focus should be on the development and implementation of a long-term investment strategy, which would leverage and blend funding sources, from European, national and/or regional programmes/promotional banks as well as private investments, and involve new players and partners.

Financial support for upscaling measures and large-scale deployment should be considered in the tasks to be defined for the Coordination and Support Action. These should include twinning programmes^[1] and capacity building for local and regional authorities. This action should create a clear and coherent set of recommendations or guidelines for public health authorities in Europe together with a strategy to support their implementation. Proposals are also expected to set up a cooperation mechanism facilitating regular exchanges between the demand (both public and private procurers) and supply (including SMEs and start-ups) sides to identify the difficulties innovators may experience in scaling up solutions across borders in the EU and define measures to improve cross-border deployment of these solutions.

The Action is expected to develop and apply user-centred strategies for implementation of transformative solutions and change management, in particular in the following fields:

• mHealth solutions for active and healthy ageing
• smart age-friendly homes and independent living
• chronic disease management

For grants awarded under this topic, beneficiaries may provide support to third parties as described in General Annex K of the Work Programme either in form of grants or prizes. The respective options of Article 15 of the Model Grant Agreement will be applied.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of up between EUR 1.5 and 2 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

The proposal should provide appropriate indicators to measure its progress and specific impact in the following areas:

• Accelerated progress on scaling-up digital innovation for active and healthy ageing across the EU.
• Contribution of the policy activities to i) The Quality of Life of the EU population, ii) The Sustainability of Health and Care delivery and iii) Economic growth and job-creation in the EU.
• Increased levels of investment by public authorities and private investors in digital innovation for health and active ageing that result from policy activities.
• Wider commitment to investment leading to successful and cost-effective implementation of digitally-enabled, person-centred care solutions.
• Enhanced market conditions that can facilitate economies of scale for the suppliers of technology and services.

Open Innovation

[1]Twinning activities such as under the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing (EIP AHA).