A success story on innovation for Active and Healthy Ageing
Active and Healthy Ageing is at the core of the EU strategy on demographic change. Several initiatives have been launched in the recent years across Europe for mobilising competences, resources and knowledge around this theme.
The EIP on AHA is one of the leading actions promoted by the European Union in this sector. Funka has successfully supported the execution of this initiative jointly with the European Commission and a broad audience of stakeholders.
Funka has coordinated the partnership working under the umbrella of the EIP on AHA securing the basis for further development and the reinforcement of a complex ecosystem dealing with research and innovation priorities, policy visions, standardisation issues, public procurement rules and opportunities, engagement and cross-fertilisation methods.
For ERRIN, PROEIPAHA has been a gateway to AHA. The project has introduced ERRIN to the EIPonAHA world. PROEIPAHA has brought ERRIN highly valuable contacts, strengthened our relations with FUNKA as well as other partners of the consortium together with the relevant European Commission DG CNECT units, says Anett Ruszanov, from ERRIN.
Impressive enhancement
Through the PROEIPAHA project, Funka has developed the portal which is now a unique platform for all the activities dealing with the Active and Healthy Ageing sector in Europe.
More than 2.500 involved organisations, including industry players, the investment community, health and social providers, academia, national and regional public authorities and government have been involved. Nearly 900 projects have been shared through the EIP on AHA portal. About 100 innovative practices have been gathered and proved scalable at territorial level targeting digital innovation for active and healthy ageing. These impressive numbers reveal the vast participation of stakeholders to the EU initiative.
The EIP on AHA portal developed by the PROEIPAHA consortium has been an important component of the overall strategy to support the future sustainability of the Partnership. We asked PROEIPAHA to help us develop a set of tools that could support the development of a more efficient EIP on AHA; where the partners could access to the most relevant information about innovation for active and healthy ageing in a format that is useful. And the enthusiasm shown so far by the partners in using the portal has confirmed that PROEIPAHA has co-developed a very useful set of tools for the EIP on AHA. According to Bruno Alves, policy officer at the European Commission.
The status of progress of the EIP on AHA and the results achieved so far have been presented and discussed at the AHA European Summit in Brussels, December 6-7, where 74 European Regions were awarded as Reference Sites for their commitment enhancing the large scale uptake of digital innovation for Active and Healthy Ageing across Europe.
The support received by Funka and the PROEIPAHA team has been of great importance for us in sharing our practices at European level and increase our capacity to network and establish new alliances with other regions, says Antonella Fait, representing the Region of Lombardia in Italy.
With PROEIPAHA we have had the opportunity to work with a broad network of stakeholders in the field of active and healthy ageing, providing logistic services, strategic consultancy, developing ICT tools for efficient knowledge management and launching communication and dissemination campaigns.
It has been a great learning experience, but the most important outcome for the team at Funka has been the positive personal experience of working with hundreds of outstanding people, foremost promoters, coordinators, and policy officers at the Commission, says Jose Usero, PROEIPAHA project coordinator.
EIP on AHA portal, opens in new window