This high level Steering Group is jointly chaired by the EC's Vice President for the Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes and European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy John Dalli and includes Member States, regions, industry, health and social care professionals, elderly and patient organisations and other interest groups. The first meeting of Steering Group was held on May 2, 2011 and was facilitated by David Byrne, a former European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy. It is the first time that in Europe all the stakeholders are joining forces at this scale to commit advancing innovation in active and healthy ageing. The draft report of the meeting  is available.

R&D&I funds should be spent more efficiently

A central aim of the Innovation partnership for Active and Healthy Ageing is to use European public and private funds spent on research and innovation more efficiently. The results should directly benefit patients and citizens. The Partnership will also identify and remove barriers to the use of life improving and life saving technologies. It will connect research and innovation, from the lab to the citizen. The partnership aims to speed up and scale up the uptake of innovation, including information & communication technology (ICT) based solutions.

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. The Innovation Union has a three-fold goal: 1) to make Europe into a world-class science performer; 2) to revolutionise the way public and private sectors work together, notably through Innovation Partnerships, and 3) to remove bottlenecks – like expensive patenting, market fragmentation, slow standard setting and skill shortages - that currently prevent ideas getting quickly to market.

The Digital Agenda for Europe foresees concrete support for this European Innovation Partnership through its actions to harness the potential of ICT to boost prosperity and improve people's quality of life. 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.

Sources: EU Innovation Union Website, RAPID Press Release.