Between 2010 and 2030, the number of Europeans aged over 65 will rise by nearly 40%, posing huge challenges but also offering great opportunities for Europe's society and economy. The EIP, which the Commission has proposed should be launched in 2011, would seek to meet three goals: to improve the health and quality of life of older people, enabling them to live active and independent lives; to contribute to the sustainability and efficiency of health and social care systems; and to foster competitiveness and business opportunities.

John Dalli, European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy said: "Europe needs to prepare for the future ageing of its society and the use of innovation shall be one of the tools at our disposal. This is why I am very pleased that the very first of the Partnerships is on Active and Healthy Ageing: it will imply a close cooperation across different policies covering public health, research, digital and industrial policy."

Neelie Kroes, Commission Vice-President for the Digital Agenda said: "People are living for longer - and should be able to do so as actively and independently as possible, with the help of innovative solutions such as fall-detection and prevention devices, easy to use social interaction services to overcome loneliness, and smart use of ICT in the home. We need input from stakeholders to make sure the future Innovation Partnership can help to make these ideas a reality for Europe's senior citizens."

The consultation invites interested stakeholders, such as organisations representing the elderly and patients, hospitals and care service providers, health and care professionals, insurers, Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) and health companies, public authorities and individual citizens, to help identifying current barriers to innovation and opportunities in the field of active and healthy ageing. Contributors can also share existing and future initiatives which could be undertaken at European level and advanced in a collaborative way. These should focus on how innovative solutions can bring promising and tangible outcomes to benefit the elderly.

The European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing, as a headline target, aims to increase the average healthy lifespan in the EU by two years by 2020. It seeks to improve older people's quality of life and to lead to more efficient care solutions. It will focus on applying innovation on a larger scale than today in areas such as health promotion, prevention, early diagnosis and treatment, integrated and collaborative health and social care systems, independent living and assistive technologies for older people.

The Commission will analyse the responses to the consultation, in order to obtain a clear view of the innovation potential and capacity in the multiple areas that affect ageing today. The responses will help the Commission to plan the next steps for the EIP.

The online consultation runs in parallel to a Conference on the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing, which is taking place in Brussels today. More than 150 stakeholder representatives are due to discuss their ideas for the partnership to convert into concrete actions.

Background

The European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing is part of the EU's "Innovation Union" strategy, one of the Europe 2020 flagship initiatives, to turn ideas into jobs, green growth and social progress (IP/10/1288). The Innovation Union has a three-fold goal: making Europe into a world-class science performer; revolutionising the way public and private sectors work together, notably through Innovation Partnerships, and removing bottlenecks – like expensive patenting, market fragmentation, slow standard setting and skill shortages - that currently prevent ideas getting quickly to market.

This corresponds to the Digital Agenda for Europe's objective to harness the potential of ICT to boost prosperity and improve people's quality of life (see IP/10/581, MEMO/10/199 and MEMO/10/200). The Digital Agenda seeks inter alia to ensure that ICT allows a more independence for people who are frail or suffer from chronic conditions and for persons with disabilities. It aims to double the take-up of independent living arrangements for the elderly by 2015.

Similarly, "fostering good health in an ageing Europe" was identified as one of the three main objectives of the EU's Healthy Strategy "Together for Health".

The consultation document is available here:

http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/einclusion/deployment/ahaip/consultation/

More information:

EC actions for “Ageing well in the information society”:

EC actions in the area of ICT for health:

The Public Health Portal of the European Union (Health-EU):

EC health in society – ageing

Digital Agenda for Europe

Innovation Union

Source: RAPID Press Release: http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/10/1609&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en