Launch of the Interreg Europe project ITHACA and first project partners' meeting
Between 18 and 19 January 2017, Denmark hosted the first project partners' meeting of the Interreg Europe project ITHACA (InnovaTion in Health And Care for All). The project involves nine European regions with the shared ambition of accelerating the scaling up of smart health and care innovation that can support active and healthy living and secure the triple win of economic growth, more sustainable health and care systems as well as the improved well-being of Europe’s citizens. The lead partner on the project is the Dutch province of Noord-Brabant. Other project partners come from Denmark (Zealand Region), Slovenia (University of Ljubljana), Italy (Friuli Venezia Giulia Autonomous Region), the United Kingdom (NHS Liverpool Clinical Commissioning Group), France (GIP Autonom’lab), Spain (Basque Foundation for Health Innovation and Research), Poland (The Malopolska Region) and Germany (State of Baden-Wuerttemberg). The head of the project at the University of Ljubljana is Vesna Dolničar from the Centre for Social Informatics (CSI).
ITHACA mirrors Interreg Europe’s aims to improve the performance of policies for regional development and its specific objective is to improve the implementation of regional development policies in areas of “smart specialisation” and innovation opportunity. All ITHACA regions prioritise smart health and care, assisted living and innovation in their smart specialisation strategies and operational structural fund plans. The approach used within the project will lead to (a) improved delivery of innovation; (b) more effective ecosystems, improved technology transfer and scaled-up, economic exploitation of research and development; (c) market growth through greater public procurement of innovation and expanded consumer markets. The first phase of the project will run between 1 January 2017 and 31 December 2019, and the second phase will run between 1 January 2020 and 31 December 2022.
The meeting, held in the Danish town of Roskilde, was attended by Vesna Dolničar and Mojca Šetinc from CSI, and Vika Kuferšin Pušnik from the Office for International Cooperation, who will also participate in the project. Another CSI member involved in the project is Nejc Berzelak.
More information about the event and the project itself is available on the project’s Facebook page and Twitter account (@ITHACA_health).