The idea behind
Last summer, ECHAlliance and Tecnalia launched the Ecosystems Engagement Survey aimed at equipping the SIRENE consortium with a deeper understanding of experts’ involvement in various ecosystems.
Specifically, the survey was designed to comprehend the levels of engagement, involvement, and visionary perspectives of experts regarding the future evolution and enhancement of these ecosystems.
Launched on June 9, 2023, through the dedicated SIRENE platform, the survey was actively promoted across the project’s social media channels, ensuring a broad spectrum of expert participation.
Results
Responses were contributed by members of the Expert Hub, representing 10 distinct countries. The findings illustrated that experts’ ecosystems operate at various levels of activity, ranging from the European level down to the district level.
As you can see in figure 3, the biggest portion is that of health and social sciences, followed by ICT for independent living, and community intervention and care.
There is a wide variety of organizations involved in these ecosystems, With Academia, as well as Health and care organizations leading.
When it comes to audiences, these ecosystems also present a wide range of targeted stakeholders, including Older people, Industry, and students.
Most of these 14 ecosystems organize regular meetings (as you can see in figure 6, 10 out of 14 responded with yes)
These experts seem to contribute mostly with R&D, as well as practical activities and knowledge transfer to their ecosystems, complimented with coordination, C&D, Networking, as well as Planning and Design tasks.
We need to mention here that most of the experts contribute undertaking more than 1 of these tasks in parallel.
The main key activities for these ecosystems are: Knowledge sharing, R&D, Networking, Public policy consulting, and health and care services.
We have asked experts what aspects of their ecosystems they think should be improved: Most of them mention engagement with policy makers and industry, while Financial and Legal support is also needed. Communication among different stakeholders and impact assessment were also mentioned as needs.
Moving forward, these are the key focus points for the future development of these ecosystems:
o Knowledge exchange
o Common C&D activities
o Increased engagement of more stakeholders
o Digitalization of these ecosystems and deepened collaboration.
Experts suggest that the SIRENE project could support them in the following ways:
o Networking and collaboration opportunities,
o With access to funding,
o Focusing on awareness and advocacy aspects,
o Enhancing knowledge exchange.
Takeaways
The experts are either champions or engaged and committed to their ecosystems, and both these categories are available to be further involved in the SIRENE project. Though there are many isolated experts that the first two categories could support in getting more engaged.
Based on the analysis of the survey findings, the following main needs were identified:
● Support towards enlarging the ecosystems and engaging industry agents and policy makers
● Support towards communicating common objectives and activities
● Knowledge exchange activities
● Networking and collaboration opportunities
● Digitalization of the ecosystems
Call to action!
The SIRENE project aims to leverage the existing networks within its consortium and Experts’ Hub and collaborate with other relevant projects and initiatives to provide targeted support measures towards ecosystems.
Support measures:
● Virtual science cafes
● Webinars
On topics such as:
● SHAFE environments
● Smart living solutions
● Remote monitoring
● Using mHealth apps & robotics
● Planning age-friendly environments
Do you know any project or initiative that we should definitely not miss? Contact us at federica@echalliance.com/dimitris@echalliance.com.
