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Committee 2 Annual Report June 2017 – May 2018

7 May, 2018 By Johanna Pacevicius

The General Assembly is the highest authority of AER and convenes representatives of all its full members at least once a year. The General Assembly adopts among other things, the annual reports of the Thematic Committees.

This report is the compilation of actions developped and implemented within Committee 2 between the 2017 General Assembly in Sankt Pölten, Lower Austria (AT) and the 2018 General Assembly in Lillehammer, Oppland (NO).

Activities are organised in 3 categories:

Projects
Good practice sharing
Advocacy/ Lobbying

The AER Action plan, which brings together all the activities carried out within AER, is constantly updated.

Brokerage event in Partnership with ERRIN on health innovation: finished

After the success of the brokerage event on the green economy and innovation early 2017, we collaborated with ERRIN to stimulate project development. This resulted in the organisation of the Horizon 2020 Project Development Week.

Project development, Youth Mental Health: ongoing

On the occasion of the Nancy plenary meeting a project development workshop on youth mental health was held to further identify areas for potential collaboration on the topic of youth mental health and the desired scope for such a project. During the Committees Plenary meetings in London, Committee 2 and Committee 3 decided to join forces for the development of a European project on youth mental health. This is the follow-up of a workshop which was held in Izmir and which identified the difficulty for young people to relate to others as a shared challenge for many very diverse regions in Europe. During the AER General Assembly a first project development meeting was held to discuss the type of focus and funding programmes. In the context of this project development the AER Secretariat also engaged with diverse experts from organisations working on mental health and held a meeting with DG EAC on youth mental health.

Due to difficulties in identifying a potential lead partner, members decided to refocus this activity on good practice sharing and awareness raising through

-workshops
-webinars
-data collection
-gathering of prevention resources
-potential topic for a future Summer Academy
-advocacy activities

Silver Economy Awards (SEED): ongoing

The Silver Economy Awards aim to catalyse a sustainable European digital Silver Economy movement by promoting and rewarding innovative solutions to improve the quality of life for over 50s. The Awards are an opportunity to raise awareness around the lesser-known notion of the Silver Economy. They illustrate the breadth of the consumer markets and the public spending involved and the size of the opportunities available for entrepreneurs, investors, public authorities and civil society.

This year the Silver Economy Awards replace the traditional AER Regional Innovation Award. The first Awards Ceremony took place on May 2018 in Brussels under the moral patronage from Commissioner Mariya Gabriel.

SEED is a two-year project: 10/2016 to 09/2018

Models of Child Health Appraised (MOCHA): ongoing

The MOCHA team is led by the Imperial College London and involves 19 scientific partners from ten European countries and 30 country agents from each European Member State and EEA country. MOCHA appraises the differing models of child health that are used across Europe. The project identified gaps in knowledge, on surveillance of children’s primary care and children’s specific needs in primary care, lack of coordination of care, models of care that are not based on current child health epidemiology, and low prioritisation of children’s needs in e-health strategies. AER is a member of the Advisory Board. AER is benefitting from the connection with the MOCHA experts, which have been invited at AER events (workshop on health innovation ecosystems in Izmir, workshop on social capital for integrated care in Norrbotten) and also shared expertise and advice for the development of the project on youth mental health led by Catalonia and Norrbotten. The project is now in the final year where results will be published. The final conference will take place on 15-16th November 2018 in The Hague (NL).

Active and Healthy Ageing Network AHA-NET: cancelled

The project proposal aimed to implement a Leadership programme for the coaching and training of future reference sites. The development of a Leadership Programme for e-health innovation was agreed on by Committee 2 in 2012. Since then the methodology has been developed and ad-hoc training academies have taken place on the Silver Economy and integrated care systems. This project would have provided an ideal framework for the deployment at larger scale of this programme.

ACT2Bridge project – Actions to Support Regional Ecosystems on Health Innovation Research: postponed

This project aims to encourage and increase the participation of European regions with a low level of health-related research and innovation activity in European research programmes through benchmarking and mutual learning. An increase in their R&I activity is expected to leverage health services, and thus, into social and economic benefits for these regions. Within this project AER is leading the Working Package “Benchlearning and knowledge exchange between regions”, having as one of the main objective of to support our regions to reach equivalent levels of development in the different areas.

This project has not been financed but, considering the high standard of the consortia and the good evaluation it received, it is planned to be submitted again in the forthcoming calls.

AMID project for the inclusion of migrants with disabilities: ongoing

The project will guide key actors to respond adequately to the disability implications in the identification process and to the cultural implications in the relocation process. It will result in the creation of a Specific Needs Assessment Tool to be circulated among all actors dealing with migrants assessment.

AER leads the Working Package on “Tuning of Outcomes to European Local Authorities” and is the project partner that will ensure the perspective of the regions is included in the adaptation of the projects outcomes and tools.

The project kicked-off in January 2018. In April a second meeting focused on good practices, in particular the JUMA Refugees Map Services and the Washington Group Set of Questions on Disability

AMiD is a two-year project: from 01/2018 to 01/2020.

European network for harmonising self, society, and systems to facilitate integrated care, COST action proposal: cancelled

This project led by partners we have been working with previously aimed at pursuing the work of AER in the field of integrated care systems. The project was not accepted.

Project development, Social inclusion of vulnerable groups: ongoing

With views to the preparation of a project gathering regional good practices on inclusion a debate took place on the occasion of the Committee 2 Plenary meeting. The idea with this project is to define a general approach to inclusion, helping policy makers appraise their policies and develop effective policies for inclusion. As the topic received a lot of interest, a workshop on inclusion was organised on the occasion of the Committees Spring Plenaries in Arad.

Project development, Combatting isolation and social exclusion: ongoing

The region of Timis would like to develop a project to address the isolation of 2 social groups:
-orphans, who at the age of 18 find themselves without support and homeless because orphanages do not support youth after their 18th birthday.

-elderly people, who often live on their own and would need minimal support and company.

The idea is to gather good practices which have been implemented in similar contexts and to look at transferability and adaptation of such good practices.

The debate at the Autumn 2017 Committee 2 plenary showed that these issues are recurring issues in different regions. These topics will also be addressed on the occasion of the workshop on inclusion at the Committees Spring Plenaries in Arad. The idea is to identify good practices for potential benchmarking and transfer.

Project development, Public-private cooperation for social inclusion: cancelled

In order to initiate a project for good practices exchanges on the collaboration between regional governments and the private sector for the social inclusion of vulnerable groups, AER published an article outlining the different issues at stake. Following the publication of this article several regions have expressed interest in developping a project. As no lead partner was identified for the project development the project was canceled

Project development, Equal Health: cancelled

Possible project (seek funding opportunities). Exchange of experiences from different programs offering parental support. As this project idea was not further specified, the activity is cancelled.

DIGIT-ABLE project: planned

Building on the work previously done by AER on digitisation and inclusion, Committee 2 is leading on a project setting up a “European Platform on Vulnerable People in the Information Society”, mapping best practices and socio-economic impact of the digital empowerment of disadvantaged people.

The DIGITABLE-EU project aims to raise the knowledge about the level of digital inclusion of vulnerable people in EU countries and to trigger the sharing of knowledge and good practices in order to increase the level of digital inclusion of vulnerable people. In order to achieve this goal, this project will work on four main priorities:

Networking with public authorities (national/regional/EU level), social business actors, civil society organisations, international associations focusing on improving the quality of life and social inclusion of the different vulnerabilities targeted by the project as well as digital literacy.
Establishing a metrics for evaluating the quality and impact of practices for digital inclusion of vulnerable people, for the vulnerabilities covered by the project: People with disabilities; Elderly people; Marginalised young people and children (based on socio-economic status); Unemployed or those facing social problems; Migrants.
Realise an interactive online catalogue of best practices, accessible via a dedicated website;
Disseminate the catalogue through dedicated events

The project was submitted on September 2017 under the Horizon 2020 and it will run for 24 months. The coordinator is INSIEL SpA (Friuli Venezia Giulia – IT).

Committees Autumn Plenaries in Nancy: finished

This Autumn’s committees’ plenary took place in Nancy (FR) from the 12th to the 14th of September. The events featured a debate on culture in the digital age, a workshop on the value of data, a workshop on transport & mobility, a workshop on life-cycle approaches and the Committees Plenary meetings.

A discussion on Cohesion Policy and its advantages also took place in Nancy.

Committees Spring Plenaries in Arad: finished

The 2018 Spring Committees’ Plenaries took place in Arad (RO) on 20-22 March. The events featured a debate on innovation ecosystems, a workshop on integrated care systems, a lounge meeting on equal opportunities, a meeting of the working group on transports, a Breakfast Briefing on implementing democracy in regional policy making, a presentation of the social inclusion policies in Arad, a meeting of the Summer Academy Organising Committee and the Committees Plenary meetings.

The Committees’ Plenaries were an opportunity to develop the Committees’ work programmes.

INTERREG Europe Policy Learning Platform (IEPLP): finished

AER was a partner of the Policy Learning Platform (PLP) which is the second action of the Interreg Europe programme established to boost EU-wide policy learning and capitalisation of practices from investments on growth and jobs. The Platform aims to be a space for continuous learning where regional actors in Europe can tap into the know-how of experts and peers. The PLP was present at the European Week of Regions and Cities (formerly Open Days).

Event on a current transversal topic: finished

Jean-Luc Vanraes, President of the AER Committee on Regional Development and Economy invited AER members to contribute to the organisation of a mtual learning event on artificial intelligence held in Brussels, on November 30th 2017. A debate at the Committee 1 Plenary meeting paved the way for this event. This event, “Artificial Intelligence: are regions up to the challenge” was organised on the same format as the event “E-health let’s find a common language” which took place in December 2016 with the contribution of very diverse stakeholders. At the event, group discussions adressed the following topics:

Supporting innovation, attracting innovators
The Health Revolution
Culture In a Digital World
Skills and Competences: racing with machines
AI: Towards a Soulless World?

The event lead also to the publication of a series of articles on artificial intelligence and its implications for different policy areas.

Follow up on ALEC: ongoing

The Arctic Light E-health conference is an emblematic example of a succesful cooperation between an AER member region and the AER network. The workshop on data of the AER e-health network in Nancy followed up on issues addressed during the conference. Articles elaborating on topics of the ALEC conference, which are of specific interest to AER members should be published.

Healthcare without harm: tbc

The idea which was presented on the occasion of the Committe 2 Plenary meeting was to combine the topics of healthcare and environment. Activities have not yet been specified and can range from the publication of articles on the AER website showcasing good practices to the organisation of a mutual learning event (online webinar, workshop in Brussels or on the occasion of another AER event). Any such activity needs to be lead by an AER region and supported by a few others. The idea will be submitted at the Spring plenaries to identify whether this is an area where different regions would like to cooperate on.

In the meantime the AER Secretariat has connected the region of Värmland, which proposed this topic, with Diane Whitehouse, an e-health expert who has done research on this topic and whom AER members have had the opportunity to meet at the AER event on artificial intelligence.

Equal opportunities: tbc

Members were interested in sharing experience through articles on the AER website, exchange of good practices, and the sharing of regional data. Members interested in doing so can get support from the AER Secretariat.

This action needs to be further specified, especially in the context of the priorities the AER group on Equal Opportunities has defined for Committee 2: Health Inequalities (gender and socio- economic)

AER AT THE EUROPEAN WEEK OF CITIES AND REGIONS

Workshop on climate and energy transition: finished

Led by the region of Abruzzo, AER co-organised a climate side-event during the European Week of Regions and Cities 2017.

Workshop on the Silver Economy: finished

Led by the SEED consortium. This workshop took participants through four inspiring examples of how a Silver Economy can help regions and cities to better match the needs of their ageing population while supporting local businesses and solution providers. It was the opportunity to discuss the complementarity between these examples and the initiatives at EU level. The networking session that followed brought together potential partners around issues related to the Silver Economy.

Workshop of the INTERREG Europe Policy Learning Platform: finished

The workshop aimed at helping regions learn from the project outputs from their peers in Europe.

Cohesion Policy Activities: ongoing

Building on AER’s role in advocating for a strong cohesion policy, and following the adoption of a position paper on the future of cohesion policy post 2020 at the Bureau meeting in Sankt Pölten, Lower Austria (AT) on 1 June 2017, AER will continue to convene and deliver joint policy influencing work for the future cohesion policy by:

Holding regular debates on cohesion policy among members and between members and relevant stakeholders, such as the “Cohesion Policy: are you getting anything out of it?” debate during the AER Committees’ Autumn Plenary Meeting in Nancy on 12 September.
Gathering facts and figures on cohesion investments results and impact for a evidence-based advocacy.
Disseminating the AER position on future cohesion policy to key stakeholders and decision-makers in-country (in coordination with member regions) and in Brussels.
Working together with other European associations of regions, municipalities and cities and the Committee of the Regions to generate broader support for regions interests and policy proposals, including #CohesionAlliance created to demand that the EU budget after 2020 makes cohesion policy stronger, more effective, visible and available for every region in the European Union.

The Task Force on Cohesion Policy post 2020 will continue to support the work of AER in this field, providing strategic direction and oversight.

These actions aim to ensure European regions engage in the future cohesion policy discussions at regional, national and European level, and meaningfully contribute to the design and implementation of a stronger and more effective reformed policy.

Following the publication of the 2021-2027 Multiannual Financial Framework on May 2nd, AER’s reaction can be found here

AER Report on Regionalisation: ongoing

More than 40 academic experts accepted to give their contribution to this work, by delivering detailed reports about the state of regionalisation and multilevel governance in chosen European countries. The study covers 41 countries, and each country report is based on a similar structure, thereby allowing a comparative approach among all studied countries.

AER participation in the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing: ongoing

AER is a member of the B3 Action Group on integrated care systems. In this framework AER has a commitment towards raising awareness & building capacities for integrated care systems. Participating in the EIP-AHA enables AER to connect with the right stakeholders, provide state of the art knowledge on health innovation and raise the voice of regions in European discussions on health innovation.

33rd Session of the Congress Local and Regional Authorities: ongoing

AER has a partnership status with the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe. It sends high-level representatives to the meetings of the Congress and sits in the Chamber of Regions Bureau. On 19 October, the AER President, Magnus Berntsson, took part in the 33rd Session of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe and addressed the Chamber of Regions during the debate on “Regional Co-operation and democracy in Europe: the role of European regional associations and organisations”. At the Session, the AER and the Congress expanded their existing collaboration by signing a Joint Action Plan for 2018-2020. The document reiterates the commitment to work together on various issues of mutual interest, notably regional democracy, youth participation and cultural diversity.

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AER Committee 2 President Mihai Ritivoiu looks back on the Plenaries in Arad

28 March, 2018 By Editor

AER’s Spring Committee Plenaries took place in Arad (Romania), from 20 to 22 March 2018 in the very beautiful location of the City Hall of Arad. The City Hall is one of the most beautiful public building in Arad. “Ferdinand” room is a spectacular location and the warm welcome of the host made our stay even more pleasant. The astonishing building embodies one of the most significant works of eclectic architecture in the city. At the time of building “Palazzo del Municipio”, was reflecting the citizens of Arad will to follow the European model of urban renewal and modernisation. The central tower is 54 meters high. The clock situated at the top of the tower was brought from the Netherlands. Its bell marked each half-hour for almost a century. After 1989, it was reconditioned, and once Romania joined the European Union, the song played at each passing hour was replaced with the Anthem of Europe. This European spirit is still present this days.

AER brings together regions, so that they may stand stronger together, and grow in a space of best practice exchange. A milestone at the Spring plenaries was the development of the Committees work programmes: all regions were invited to share initiatives they would like to develop within the network, with the AER priority “A democratic, cooperative, inclusive and sustainable Europe of Regions”. The plenaries are the perfect place to find partners to develop new collaborations and projects and their implementation.

The Committees’ plenaries: it’s all about sharing & learning

Across wider Europe, regions engage in multilevel cooperation to support the development of innovation ecosystems either within their own territory, or in collaboration with neighbouring regions and cities, in national and cross-border frameworks. This kind of approach of regional policy is not something new to our members, just to mention two of our main topics in our committee: Arctic Light Conference focused on e-health, and Silver Economy (SEED).

At the core of our activities are two major topics: health and social affairs, which nowadays translates in Youth Mental Health which is a good example of Committee 2 and Committee 3 cooperation and Artificial Intelligence, that shows the cooperation between Committee 2 and Committee 1.

Migration and integration are not new to Europe, but the current refugee and migrant crisis is on a scale unseen for decades. Europe’s institutions and national governments have yet to forge proper responses – but rising tensions point to the need for a realistic and comprehensive policy that addresses both challenges and opportunities.

Integration issues, if not addressed effectively, will only serve to fuel discontent and create divisions. Policymakers need to avoid emotion and quick-fixes, and see migration and integration as an asset rather than a threat. Member regions address this topic ever since 2015 and an ongoing project I would like to highlight is AMiD, project for the inclusion of migrants with disabilities. This project will provide opportunities for experience sharing and capacity building in this area for all AER members.

Contact

President of Committee 2 for Social Policy and Public Health

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Committee 2 Progress Report Spring 2018

7 March, 2018 By Johanna Pacevicius

Twice a year the members of the AER Committee on Social Policy and Public Health gather in plenary meeting. This is the opportunity to set goals for cooperation through the elaboration of a joint work programme. Progress is evaluated, achievements are celebrated and experiences shared.

Evaluating progress

During the elaboration of the work programme in London, planned activities were organised in 3 categories:

Projects
Good practice sharing
Advocacy/ Lobbying

The below progress report was compiled for the Spring 2018 plenary meeting in Arad. It gives an overview of the situation, a year after the adoption of the work programme. The 2018 Committee 2 work programme will be jointly developed and adopted on March 21st at the Committee 2 Plenary meeting. Activities which are still ongoing will be integrated in the 2018 work programme too if still relevant for the Committee.

Projects

Brokerage event in Partnership with ERRIN on health innovation: finished

Project development, Youth Mental Health: ongoing

Due to difficulties in identifying a potential lead partner this activity could be refocused on good practice sharing during workshops at plenaries, webinars and or meetings in Brussels, depending on members needs and wishes. This will be defined on the occasion of the definition of the 2018 Committee 2 work programme in Arad on March 21st.

Silver Economy Awards (SEED): ongoing

This year the Silver Economy Awards replace the traditional AER Regional Innovation Award. The first Awards Ceremony will be on May 2018 in Brussels.

SEED is a two-year project: 10/2016 to 09/2018

Models of Child Health Appraised (MOCHA): ongoing

Active and Healthy Ageing Network AHA-NET: cancelled

ACT2Bridge project – Actions to Support Regional Ecosystems on Health Innovation Research: postponed

This project has not been financed but, considering the high standard of the consortia and the good evaluation it received, it is planned to be submitted again in the forthcoming calls.

AMID project for the inclusion of migrants with disabilities: ongoing

This project is led by the European Association of Service Providers for Persons with Disabilities and aims to improve the access to services for migrants with disabilities. AER is a partner and Valencia, Timis and Värmland are all members of the Advisory Board. The project is will provide opportunities for experience sharing and capacity building in this area for all AER members.

European network for harmonising self, society, and systems to facilitate integrated care, COST action proposal: cancelled

This project led by partners we have been working with previously aimed at pursuing the work of AER in the field of integrated care systems. The project was not accepted.

Project development, Social inclusion of vulnerable groups: ongoing

With views to the preparation of a project gathering regional good practices on inclusion a debate took place on the occasion of the Committee 2 Plenary meeting. The idea with this project is to define a general approach to inclusion, helping policy makers appraise their policies and develop effective policies for inclusion. As the topic received a lot of interest, a workshop on inclusion is foreseen on the occasion of the Committees Spring Plenaries in Arad.

Project development, Combatting isolation and social exclusion: ongoing

-elderly people, who often live on their own and would need minimal support and company.

The idea is to gather good practices which have been implemented in similar contexts and to look at transferability and adaptation of such good practices.

Project development, Public-private cooperation for social inclusion: cancelled

Project development, Equal Health: cancelled

Possible project (seek funding opportunities). Exchange of experiences from different programs offering parental support. As this project idea was not further specified, the activity is cancelled.

DIGIT-ABLE project: planned

Networking with public authorities (national/regional/EU level), social business actors, civil society organisations, international associations focusing on improving the quality of life and social inclusion of the different vulnerabilities targeted by the project as well as digital literacy.
Establishing a metrics for evaluating the quality and impact of practices for digital inclusion of vulnerable people, for the vulnerabilities covered by the project: People with disabilities; Elderly people; Marginalised young people and children (based on socio-economic status); Unemployed or those facing social problems; Migrants.
Realise an interactive online catalogue of best practices, accessible via a dedicated website;
Disseminate the catalogue through dedicated events

The project was submitted on September 2017 under the Horizon 2020 and it will run for 24 months. The coordinator is INSIEL SpA (Friuli Venezia Giulia – IT).

Committees Autumn Plenaries in Nancy: finished

This Autumn’s committees’ plenary took place in Nancy, France, from the 12th to the 14th of September. The events featured a debate on culture in the digital age, a workshop on the value of data, a workshop for the development of a project on youth mental health, and the Committees Plenary meetings.

A discussion on Cohesion Policy and its advantages also took place in Nancy.

INTERREG Europe Policy Learning Platform (IEPLP): finished

Event on a current transversal topic: finished

Supporting innovation, attracting innovators
The Health Revolution
Culture In a Digital World
Skills and Competences: racing with machines
AI: Towards a Soulless World?

The event lead also to the publication of a series of articles on artificial intelligence and its implications for different policy areas.

Follow up on ALEC: ongoing

Healthcare without harm: tbc

Equal opportunities: tbc

AER AT THE EUROPEAN WEEK OF CITIES AND REGIONS

Workshop on climate and energy transition: finished

Led by the region of Abruzzo, AER co-organised a climate side-event during the European Week of Regions and Cities 2017.

Workshop on the Silver Economy: finished

Workshop of the INTERREG Europe Policy Learning Platform: finished

The workshop aimed at helping regions learn from the project outputs from their peers in Europe.

Advocacy/ Lobbying

Cohesion Policy Activities: ongoing

Holding regular debates on cohesion policy among members and between members and relevant stakeholders, such as the “Cohesion Policy: are you getting anything out of it?” debate during the AER Committees’ Autumn Plenary Meeting in Nancy on 12 September.
Gathering facts and figures on cohesion investments results and impact for a evidence-based advocacy.
Disseminating the AER position on future cohesion policy to key stakeholders and decision-makers in-country (in coordination with member regions) and in Brussels.
Working together with other European associations of regions, municipalities and cities and the Committee of the Regions to generate broader support for regions interests and policy proposals, including #CohesionAlliance created to demand that the EU budget after 2020 makes cohesion policy stronger, more effective, visible and available for every region in the European Union.

The Task Force on Cohesion Policy post 2020 will continue to support the work of AER in this field, providing strategic direction and oversight.

AER Report on Regionalisation: ongoing

AER participation in the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing: ongoing

33rd Session of the Congress Local and Regional Authorities: ongoing

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Committee 3 Progress report 2017

31 August, 2017 By Johanna Pacevicius

Twice a year the members of the AER Committee on Culture, Education and Youth gather in plenary meeting. This is the opportunity to set goals for cooperation through the elaboration of a joint work programme. Progress is evaluated, achievements are celebrated and experiences shared.

Evaluating progress

During the elaboration of the work programme in London, planned activities were organised in 3 categories:

Projects
Good practice sharing
Lobbying

The below progress report was compiled for the autumn 2017 plenary meeting in Nancy. It gives an overview of the situation, 6 months after the adoption of the work programme.

Projects

Involvement of YRN in AER projects: ongoing

AER is supporting the YRN’s participation in European Projects in 2 main aspects:

support in the development of own projects, as in the case of the development of an environment project based on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). YRN representatives met with AER Coordinator for European Projects & Private Partnerships Agnese Pantaloni to learn about project development steps and potential funding opportunities. The YRN will work on the definition of an EU project.
Systematically think of including the YRN when AER is invited to join a consortium

Project development, Youth Mental Health: ongoing

On the occasion of the Nancy plenary meeting a project development workshop on youth mental health will be held. All regions are welcome to join!
During the Committees Plenary meetings in London, Committee 2 and Committee 3 decided to join forces for the development of a European project on youth mental health. This is the follow-up of a workshop which was held in Izmir and which identified the difficulty for young people to relate to others as a shared challenge for many very diverse regions in Europe. During the AER General Assembly a first project development meeting was held to discuss the type of focus and funding programmes.

In the context of this project development the AER Secretariat also engaged with diverse experts from organisations working on mental health and held a meeting with DG EAC on youth mental health.

Silver Economy Awards (SEED): ongoing

The Silver Economy Awards aim to catalyse a sustainable European digital Silver Economy movement by promoting and rewarding innovative solutions to improve the quality of life for over 50s. The Silver Economy is a topic which is relevant for all 3 AER Committees. This market is growing even faster than the Green Economy, which means new and different jobs and therefore adequate education and training. The Silver Economy also includes culture for people of 50+ years.

The Awards are the perfect opportunity to raise awareness around the lesser-known notion of the Silver Economy. They will illustrate the breadth of the consumer markets and the public spending involved and the size of the opportunities available for entrepreneurs, investors, public authorities and civil society.

This year the Silver Economy Awards replace the traditional AER Regional Innovation Award. Regions are invited to submit their innovative solutions for active healthy and happy ageing until 15 November 2017 on the SEED website. SEED runs regular webinars.

Youth Caravan: ongoing

This interregional project was developed to follow-up on the workshop organised by Harghita at the 2016 EWCR. It aims to foster the dialogue between youth and policy makers. The YRN will have the possibility to participate to the main project meetings (mainly the youth consultations and the final conference) having travel & accommodation costs covered, will have the possibility to contribute to the elaboration of the joint action plan as well as to be involved in the other project activities. This is a 3 years project which, if approved, will start in autumn 2017.

Project development, Cultural Heritage: ongoing

On the occasion of the Plenary meetings in London a project development workshop was organised on the topic of cultural heritage. Several topics were suggested for project development, such as cultural heritage routes and digitalisation. The region of Nordland presented their project proposal, Via Querinissima, which was also presented on the AER website. The AER Secretariat supported the region for the consortium building.

AER regularly receives invitations to join projects or requests for support to consortium building. These are generally shared on the AER website.

Other regions regions discussed potential areas for collaboration. Regions willing to get support for the development of a project can contact the AER Secretariat.

Committees Autumn Plenaries in Nancy: ongoing

This Autumn’s committees’ plenary will take place in Nancy, France, from the 12th to the 14th of September. The events will feature a debate on culture in the digital age, a breakfast briefing on regional culture strategies, a workshop for the development of a project on youth mental health, and the Committees Plenary meetings.

A discussion on Cohesion Policy and its the issues at stake will also take place in Nancy.

INTERREG Europe Policy Learning Platform (IEPLP): ongoing

AER is a key partner of the Policy Learning Platform (PLP) which is the second action of the Interreg Europe programme established to boost EU-wide policy learning and capitalisation of practices from investments on growth and jobs. The Platform is a space for continuous learning where regional actors in Europe can tap into the know-how of experts and peers. The PLP will be present at the European Week of Regions and Cities (formerly Open Days).

Event on a current transversal topic: ongoing

Jean-Luc Vanraes, President of the AER Committee on Regional Development and Economy is inviting all AER members to contribute to the preparation of an event on artificial intelligence to be held in Brussels, on November 30th 2017. A debate at the Committee 1 Plenary meeting will pave the way for this event. This event, “Artificial Intelligence: are regions up to the challenge” will be organised on the same format as the event “E-health let’s find a common language” which took place in December 2016 with the contribution of very diverse stakeholders.

Cultural heritage: ongoing

On the occasion of the workshop on cultural heritage, AER members shared their experiences, challenges and good practices. Another means of sharing good practices is via the AER website. The region of Gävleborg for instance shared their vision and activities in the context of the European Year for Cultural Heritage

AER Most Youth Friendly European Region: finished

The MYFER award ceremony took place on the occasion of the AER GA in Lower Austria and recognised the particularly impressive achievements of Vojvodina and Catalonia. The evaluation and selection of the projects was carried out together with representatives from the AER Youth Regional Network, Eurochild, the European Youth Forum (EYF), the European Youth Parliament (EYP), and the Advisory Council on Youth of the Council of Europe Youth Department. Each of the projects submitted received a detailed evaluation and advice for improvements. The youth-friendly initiatives shared were highlighted in a series of #shinebright articles on the AER website in order to inspire other regions.

Awareness-raising & engagement about Eurodyssey: ongoing

While Eurodyssey is the oldest AER programme its achievements and the way it works are not always well known to AER members. Eurodyssey provides young Europeans a work experience abroad. This has proven to be extremely positive in increasing employment perspectives for young people. The programme is for youth 18 to 30, unemployed or recently qualified, living in a participating region. The work placements are organised and financed by the host regions. Since its creation, over 10,000 young people have benefited from Eurodyssey work placements. New regions can join and benefit from the programme. The feedback from the last Eurodyssey Forum can be found on the AER website and the next Eurodyssey Forum will take place in Croatia from 3-5 October.

Par/Tea, culture and inclusion: ongoing

This initiatives aims to integrate migrant people by organising cultural events. The exchange of cultural values and learning by dialogue are the 2 main objectives. It will be organised as non-formal gathering of people on a weekly basis and more formal workshops.
Vojvodina will organise a “PARtea” seminar end 2017 and discuss results with AER members. Interested members can join this initiative.

Culture & Health: tbc

Follow-up on previous actions and conferences in Istanbul & Västerbotten on topics such as culture on prescription, culture and sports. After the workshop on culture and health in Nordjylland an AER handbook on Culture and Health was published in 2015. Regions willing to engage in further policy learning on this topic can contact the Secretariat to define activities they can lead within the AER network.

Compilation of good practices on school dropouts: finished

The region of Västernorrland brought together regions to share good practices to combat early school leaving through the AER working group on school dropouts. They set up an Erasmus+ project to further develop the exchanges and mutual learning. They finalised the work with a very useful handbook which brings together good practices from 11 regions in wider Europe.

Awareness raising on YRN activities: ongoing

Awareness raising on YRN activities is carried out through:

information on the AER website
communication around YRN activities, such as high-level meetings, conferences or capacity building activities
inclusion of YRN representatives in the AER slack teams for online collaboration
invitation of YRN representatives to AER activities, partnership development, and plenary meetings

Training on European regional affairs: ongoing

AER is a partner of the European College of Cluny, a new training offer 100% dedicated to local democracy, territorial engineering and innovation in Europe. An AER delegation participated in the Cluny Summer School to further develop the collaboration for the training as well as for the AER Summer Academy.

AER AT THE EUROPEAN WEEK OF CITIES AND REGIONS

Workshop on the Silver Economy: ongoing

Led by the SEED consortium. This workshop will take its participants through four inspiring examples of how a Silver Economy can help regions and cities to better match the needs of their ageing population while supporting local businesses and solution providers. It will be the opportunity to discuss the complementarity between these examples and the initiatives at EU level. The networking session that follows will bring together potential partners around issues related to the Silver Economy.

Workshop of the INTERREG Europe Policy Learning Platform: ongoing

Looking for new solutions for regional policy? 2000+ institutions have already exchanged experiences through interregional cooperation. You can learn from other cities and regions and their tried-and-tested solutions. The Interreg Europe Policy Learning Platform is launching an expert-validated Good Practice Database. Visit our show-case corner, learn more and get inspired!

Lobbying

Cohesion Policy Activities: ongoing

The Assembly of European Regions (AER) is closely following the ongoing European debates on cohesion policy, whose future is uncertain. Aiming at defending regions’ interests in this field and make their voices heard, AER has been and will continue to work intensively on this issue. The next Bureau Meeting will be held in Maastricht.

AER Report on Regionalisation: ongoing

33rd Session of the Congress Local and Regional Authorities: ongoing

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Committee 2 Progress report 2017

30 August, 2017 By Johanna Pacevicius

Evaluating progress

During the elaboration of the work programme in London, planned activities were organised in 3 categories:

Projects
Good practice sharing
Lobbying

The below progress report was compiled for the autumn 2017 plenary meeting in Nancy. It gives an overview of the situation, 6 months after the adoption of the work programme.

Projects

Brokerage event in Partnership with ERRIN on health innovation: ongoing

After the success of the brokerage event on the green economy and innovation, we are this time proposing a new type of event in collaboration with ERRIN to stimulate project development: the Horizon 2020 Project Development Week. This 5 days event replaces the half day brokerage event on e-health initially foreseen. It will bring together 400 different regional stakeholders around a series of selected EU calls to initiate project partnerships. These events are open to your regional stakeholders, don’t hesitate to invite them to join and share project ideas!

Project development, Youth Mental Health: ongoing

In the context of this project development the AER Secretariat also engaged with diverse experts from organisations working on mental health and held a meeting with DG EAC on youth mental health.

Silver Economy Awards (SEED): ongoing

The Silver Economy Awards aim to catalyse a sustainable European digital Silver Economy movement by promoting and rewarding innovative solutions to improve the quality of life for over 50s. The Awards are the perfect opportunity to raise awareness around the lesser-known notion of the Silver Economy. They will illustrate the breadth of the consumer markets and the public spending involved and the size of the opportunities available for entrepreneurs, investors, public authorities and civil society.

Models of Child Health Appraised (MOCHA): ongoing

The MOCHA team is led by the Imperial College London and involves 19 scientific partners from ten European countries and 30 country agents from each European Member State and EEA country. MOCHA appraises the differing models of child health that are used across Europe. The project identified gaps in knowledge, on surveillance of children’s primary care and children’s specific needs in primary care, lack of coordination of care, models of care that are not based on current child health epidemiology, and low prioritisation of children’s needs in e-health strategies. AER is a member of the Advisory Board. AER is benefitting from the connection with the MOCHA experts, which have been invited at AER events (workshop on health innovation ecosystems in Izmir, workshop on social capital for integrated care in Norrbotten) and recently shared expertise and advice for the development of the project on youth mental health led by Catalonia and Norrbotten.

Active and Healthy Ageing Network AHA-NET: project on reserve list

The project proposal aimed to implement a Leadership programme for the coaching and training of future reference sites. The development of a Leadership Programme for e-health innovation was agreed on by Committee 2 in 2012. Since then the methodology has been developped and ad-hoc training academies have taken place on the Silver Economy and integrated care systems. This project would have provided an ideal framework for the deployment at larger scale of this programme.

ACT2Bridge: project on reserve list

This project proposal aimed at facilitating knowledge flow for health research and innovation activities between EU regions. One of the main aspects was the support to health innovation ecosystems. The aims and activities of this project corresponded to needs expressed by AER members and would have offered AER regions a set of useful services.

AMID project for the inclusion of migrants with disabilities: ongoing

European network for harmonising self, society, and systems to facilitate integrated care, COST action proposal: project was not accepted

This project led by partners we have been working with previously aimed at pursuing the work of AER in the field of integrated care systems.

Project development, Social inclusion of vulnerable groups: ongoing

With views to the preparation of a project gathering regional good practices on inclusion a debate will take place on the occasion of the Committee 2 Plenary meeting. The idea with this project is to define a general approach to inclusion, helping policy makers appraise their policies and develop effective policies for inclusion.

Project development, Combatting isolation and social exclusion: ongoing

-elderly people, who often live on their own and would need minimal support and company.

The idea is to gather good practices which have been implemented in similar contexts and to look at transferability and adaptation of such good practices.

Project development, Public-private cooperation for social inclusion: ongoing

In order to initiate a project for good practices exchanges on the collaboration between regional governments and the private sector for the social inclusion of vulnerable groups, AER published an article outlining the different issues at stake. Following the publication of this article several regions have expressed interest in developping a project. In order to move ahead with the project development, a lead partner willing to take a leading role in the proposal writing needs to be identified.

Project development, Equal Health: tbc

Possible project (seek funding opportunities). Exchange of experiences from different programs offering parental support. At the moment this project idea would need to be further specified.

Committees Autumn Plenaries in Nancy: ongoing

This Autumn’s committees’ plenary will take place in Nancy, France, from the 12th to the 14th of September. The events will feature a debate on culture in the digital age, a workshop on the value of data, a workshop for the development of a project on youth mental health, and the Committees Plenary meetings.

A discussion on Cohesion Policy and its advantages will also take place in Nancy.

INTERREG Europe Policy Learning Platform (IEPLP): ongoing

Event on a current transversal topic: ongoing

Follow up on ALEC: ongoing

The Arctic Light E-health conference is an emblematic example of a succesful cooperation between an AER member region and the AER network. The workshop on data of the AER e-health network will follow-up on issues addressed during the conference. Articles elaborating on topics of the ALEC conference, which are of specific interest to AER members will be published in the coming months.

Healthcare without harm: tbc

Equal opportunities: tbc

AER AT THE EUROPEAN WEEK OF CITIES AND REGIONS

Workshop on the Silver Economy: ongoing

Workshop of the INTERREG Europe Policy Learning Platform: ongoing

Lobbying

Cohesion Policy Activities: ongoing

AER Report on Regionalisation: ongoing

AER participation in the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing: ongoing

33rd Session of the Congress Local and Regional Authorities: ongoing

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AER E-health journey

30 August, 2017 By Editor

With its many years working on e-health and social innovation technologies, AER is recognised as leader in the field. Today, let’s go a few years back and look at everything AER has achieved from the creation of its E-health network in 2006 to its longstanding cooperation with ALEC.

E-health political breakthroughs

E-health can be defined as a set of IT tools used to meet the needs of citizens and patients as well as healthcare professionals, service providers, local authorities and national governments in the field of health.

It is of great political interest as it represents an innovative way to deliver health services, in particular in remote rural areas and to people with mobility difficulties. E-health is seen as an alternative in order to release scarce labour and infrastructure resources. Nowadays, 80% of financing in the health sector is assigned to human resources with around 75% coming directly from public funding. According to the European Commission, 17,5 million people are employed as administrative staff in the medical field, representing 9,3% workers in Europe. In that sense, e-health is determinant to optimise health administration and increase productivity in the sector.

Moreover, E-health is an essential tool for the modernisation of health services in Europe. This, in light of ever-decreasing health budgets and the increasing demands on health systems resulting from demographic changes. Innovation in the health system will with no doubt improve the exchange of information and good practice among healthcare actors and raise awareness on health widely! E-health services are particularly compelling to its usage in preventive health care as well as distance mental health treatments. Thanks to all the above, e-health is a major instrument in improving the quality, efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare services for patients.

Regarding economics and businesses, e-health is a sector with a significant growth potential: touching up-and-coming areas such as technologies, engineering and innovation. Besides, ICT research and development can effectively contribute to regional and EU economic growth.

E-health Network, a life story

AER E-health network was created in 2006. Its meaning was first to identify priority political areas in e-health and to develop joint cooperation projects for regions. The exchange of experience and good practice between regions is also a clear focus for the group.

Therefore, the aim of the network is to create a platform where regions can engage in interregional cooperation projects to develop e-health tools and where they can contribute to European policies on e-health. It brings together member regions interested in developing policies in this field, but also external organisations who focus on the development of e-health technologies. The network is fully open to AER member regions that are either already active in e-health or want to develop e-health policies and tools.

Focus areas include: e-diagnosis, research for available e-health resources, record keeping systems, distance planning, active and independent living for the elderly, mental health and e-health as a planning tool for health and social systems.

The network especially works on:

Raising awareness and disseminating knowledge on the potential of e-health
Gathering information on existing tools, funding and policies and carry out studies
Together with other regions and partners in coordinating our e-health tools and strategies
Stimulating the development of products and services for the commercial market
Encouraging research and education in the e-health sector

It organises thematic meetings and several conferences a year to make sure regions fully benefit from other’s experience and good practice to learn everything there is to know about e-health and improve regional systems.

First round for the E-health network

From 2006, the network organised several seminars to exchange experience and start discussing potential interregional cooperation projects. Later that year, the ‘E-health: around the clock care for everyone, everywhere‘ conference was launched in Norbotten. It was the occasion to sharpen key fields of action, choosing to especially discuss e-health as a tool for service delivery, sharing patient information, prevention and dissemination of information. The harmonisation of regional systems and infrastructures as well as creating partnerships with other sectors were also a fundamental feature of the conference.

Following the conference, the network made it its priority to improve the delivery of health services, modernise these services in order to make them financially sustainable and improve access to health services, in particular in rural or remote areas.

In 2007, during a seminar held in Brussels region made their first proposals for e-health cooperation project. AER also actively participated in ‘The World of IT Health’ Conference, in Vienna to exchange observations on interoperable health systems as well as the legal and regulatory framework for e-health in Europe.

2008 was under the sign of promoting cross-border cooperation in e-health and facilitating exchange of e-health professionals. With the hit of the financial crisis, the group profoundly discussed european developments and funding opportunities. New focus subjects were brought to the table such as medical data privacy & protection as well as chronic disease management.

Building a strong link with e-health businesses

AER plays an active part in bringing together SMEs active in ehealth, regional authorities and the end users (patients’, youth and seniors’ associations). The aim is to bring all actors in the ehealth chain together to identify the future priorities in ehealth and to create synergies between them for the development and implementation of the necessary tools and policies.

Different approaches were tested to create a discussion forum for eHealth end users, buyers and developers. Finally a slack channel was successfully developed where all members are free to join. AER also help in facilitating the creation of a regional SMEs network on ehealth across Europe while encouraging the creation of strong trans-border partnerships between businesses involved in the health services.

A multi-stakeholder approach in need of clear leadership

In that sense, AER has always promoted a multi-stakeholder approach to develop innovation in the health sector, involving healthcare professionals, patients, end-users, businesses and industry. The network strongly encourages the exchange of knowledge and experience between all actors as well as e-awareness. This perspective was reinforced from 2010, with AER collaboration with EHTEL to stimulate crossborder cooperation in e-health.

From there, the e-health network recognized that e-health was not only a matter of technology and technics but lacks a clear leadership in the field. Since then, it has hardly worked to highlight the valuable role of regions in maintaining their citizens health. AER worked close with ETHEL in order to develop a programme to train regional representatives to the high stakes of e-health. AER’s strategy was to build capacity and leadership by following the “Learning by doing” principle and develop interregional cooperation projects through the INTERREG agenda. That way building relations to voice the regions’ demands. Such a project is still under development, identifying challenges, targeting sustainable investments and working to change mentalities.

AER representing member regions interest through the European Commission

AER launched several partnerships with the European Commission. Together, they organised several events, along with the support of the committee of regions.

One of the most significant collaboration involves the AHAIP initiatives in 2011, the “Active and Healthy Ageing Innovation Partnership“. The programme results in a pilot action designed to improve patients’ health and quality of life and the health administration’s efficiency, as well as supporting the elderly by granting them better quality services. The aim is to bring together actors at all levels and sectors to mobilise available resources and expertise. Once again, it encourages variety of stakeholders to work together while stimulating innovation and capacity. AER wants to make Europe a global leader in e-health, that according to her should be sustainable, an integral part of regional planning process and a priority among regional politicians.

Invited by the European Commission, the AER E-health network organised a workshop to showcase regional expertise in the e-health field. This event took place in the framework of the e-health week in Budapest, a major conference that gathered politicians, health administrators, researchers and industries in order to discuss future priorities for e-health. The forum’s participants emphasised the major role played by regions in the deployment of personal e-health solutions by highlighting the progress achieved for chronic pathologies such as diabetes, cardio-vascular and obstructive pulmonary diseases. The aim of this session was to identify the steps that need to be taken to link the various regional initiatives across Europe today and achieve the AER e- [email protected] network’s vision: dropping the ‘e’ from ‘e-health’, plus, what needs to be done to achieve Europe-wide deployment of e-health.

Longstanding partnership – ALEC

Since 2010, AER developed strong links with the Artic Light E-health Conference. ALEC is a captivating event uniting digital health professionals from across the globe meet in the arctic region of Norrbotten for two days of inspiration, networking and skill development. The event is hosted by the President of AER Committee 2, Ms Agneta Granström who is also the Chair of the AER e-health network.

Each year AER members are invited to participate in a great panel of events on e-health, including study visits. ALEC enables all stakeholders discuss digital’s potential to bridge health gaps, and develop tools to design better health for all. Past conferences have included key aspects of e-health sought to address both the technical and organisational aspects affecting the patient’s experience. Participants discuss sustainable e-health (social, environmental & economical),independent living and prevention. Together they exchange on european perspectives, best practices, cross border services and identify challenges.

Last year the 5th Arctic Light e-Health Conference was held in Sweden.

Speeding up actions

From 2016, AER became a true leader in E-health good practice event, multiplying opportunities for its regions.

AER members met with Representatives from the industry, academy and institution will meet up in Budapest (HU) for the international 360° Summit on eHealth. Together they discussed quality healthcare provisioning in Europe, a major issue for the EU healthcare systems. In deed, the population growth and the increasing number of chronic patients is creating a strong budgetary pressure on governments. AER provided concrete actions to face this challenge within its Committees, favouring a dialogue among health, innovation, enterprises and social policies.

Besides, AER actively joined in “E-health: let’s find a common language” event hosted by Brussels Capital at the Committee of the Regions. The event aimed at providing participants with information on funding opportunities in the field of healthcare, new connections, tested ideas to improve communication between stakeholders, inspiration and mutual understanding. AER wants to show increase collaboration and improve communication among stakeholders, beginning at the regional level. This event successfully managed to bring together companies and organisations working on e-health via group discussions, enhancing the participation and the exchange of ideas.

Finally AER participated in a session organised by ECHAlliance on a new “Coalition of the Willing” at the 2016 e-health week. This digital health journey across Europe aims at speeding up the deployment of e-health in regions. Agneta Granström presented the issues faced by europeans regions. When it comes to using e-health to build a new, sustainable and patient-centered health system, which supports health innovation, leadership is key. Ms. Granström emphasized the need for change management, change leadership and an increased focus on improving digital literacy among leaders.

+ Related articles

Photo by jesse orrico on Unsplash

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Updates on MOCHA project: events, newsletters and outcomes

21 April, 2017 By Editor

Time flies. The MOCHA project (Models of Child Health Appraised) team have already carried out many tasks and initiatives. Updates on the recent work has been published in March and AER wish to share it with member regions and partners. Moreover, in April the project reached its mid-point and initial results of the analysis carried out were presented at the 64th Working Group on the Quality of Childhood (QoC) hosted by MEP Hannu Takkula (Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, Finland) at the European Parliament on 11 April.

Newsletter March 2017: In January, the 18-Month report was submitted to the EC as a requirement of their funding and base for strengthening their inter-project working. MOCHA project was presented at ALEC – Arctic Light E-Health Conference on 1-2 February, in Lulea, northern Sweden. The DIPEx team carried out interviews of children and young people which provided a valuable insight into primary care service and had an International Meeting in London on 13th and 14th March to discuss data from interviews and to start the final DIPEx patient experience report. WP1 is coming to its end: the Final Report of D6 has been submitted to the EC in February. From now on, focus will be WP9 on producing evidence- based optimum models and a toolkit for improving primary care across Europe. WP5 was completed with a report on the Quality Measures and Data Sources Workshop, summarising the work done so far. The External Advisory Board had a meeting on 21st and 22^nd March in Malta for further progress of co-working between WPs: new joint WP groups were established. Further work will be the final conclusions at the end of 2018 as well as working on the dissemination of the first results.

64th QoC Workshop on “Primary Health Care for Children in Europe. Similarities and Differences between Countries – what do they Mean? Interim findings of the Models Of Child Health Appraised (MOCHA) Horizon 2020 Project” – WORKING GROUP ON THE QUALITY OF CHILDHOOD AT THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT (QOC): it took place in Brussels on 11th April 2017 and it was aimed at presenting and discussing the initial findings of primary health care for children in Europe. The QoC Talk Session and its post session were about exchanges of these initial findings and reflections. Findings were presented by Professor Michael Rigby and Dr. Denise Alexander, respectively the Deputy Leader and Research Coordinator of the MOCHA project representing the lead partner, Imperial College London (UK). The discussion was led by Professor Michael Rigby and Michiel Matthes, Chairman of the Alliance for Childhood European Network Group. As a member of the External Advisory Board, AER attended the QoC Talk Session where we had the possibility to have fruitful exchanges with Ms Shanti George from the Learning for Well-being Community as well as with Ms Tinna Ros Steinsdottir from Eurochild Secretariat.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION IN A NUTSHELL

What is MOCHA project?

The project appraises the models of children’s health care through a number of different work packages. The varied combined approaches provide a rounded and robust analysis of the models of primary health care for children that exist in Europe. The disciplines encompassed by the project include medicine, nursing, economics, informatics, sociology and policy management. It is funded by the European Commission through the Horizon 2020 Framework, began on June 2015 and will continue until November 2018. AER is a member of the External Advisory Board and had set up a focus group to follow the project developments closely and ensure AER members benefit of it.

What are the aims and activities?

MOCHA project wish to help every child benefit from optimum health care, by performing a systematic, scientific evaluation of the types of health care that exist. To this extent, 20 scientific teams, from 11 European countries and Australia, Switzerland and the United States, were established. Gathering data and capturing current scenarios around primary care models were carried out in the first year. In the second year, the MOCHA team is analysing these data previously gathered from 30 countries of the EU/EEA via a country agent in each country.

Cohesion of different approaches and quality measures of optimal models of child primary health care are the goals of the project for a better-understanding and to avoid any cross-tensions between those. Different tasks were organised through 11 Work Packages and 64 internal deliverables, starting on 2015.

Do you wish to get an insight through the previous newsletters?

Newsletter 2015 December: Researchers were recruited for the scientific team. Meetings and teleconferences of country agents, partners, guests and the External Advisory Board were held, starting in September. The first deliverable on designing guidelines, logo and the website to the European Commission (EC) was completed. Questions were sent out to all country agents to identify models of primary health care for child in October and December.
Newsletter 2016 March: An internal workshop was organised in Rome on 24^th February to further discuss measures of quality of child health models. In February, D2 ‘Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of the Literature’ was conducted by the CNR Institute of Neuroscience (CNR-IN) in Padua (Italy) to give an overview of a framework describing model type and key elements in EU Member States, Norway and Iceland as well as selecting different aspects of children’s primary care. The first scientific deliverable was submitted on 1^st March 2016.
Newsletter 2016 June: In April, the Slovakian country agent, Jozef Suvada (St Elizabeth University in Bratislava) hosted the External Advisory Board six-monthly meeting in which work packages worked together and identified synergies between each focus area. The Greek country agent, Dr Pania Karnaki represented MOCHA in Timisoara (Romania) at the meeting of the Assembly of European Regions (AER). AER has set up a focus group led by Dr Marta Tatar, County Councillor of Covasna (Romania), which follows the project. Updates on D2 were made by adding information on ASD and asthma in May. An internal literature review were also on 31^st May for the first draft of the UML Modelling of health system processes (D6). Further meetings of internal deliverables were carried out for Work Package 1, 2, 4 and 5.
Newsletter 2016 September: Internal deliverable meetings were carried out on D6 Current Models of Primary Care in May and WP5’s work led to the compilation and cataloguing the identified data sets in Europe. WP5 has resulted in the collaboration of MIROI database and the European Medical Information Framework (EMIF) project in order to create an online MOCHA repository on the EMIF platform. Deliverable 3 (7.1) and D4 (8.1) were both submitted to the EC. A workshop for WP9 was organised on 23^rd August in Leiden (the Netherlands), hosted by Dr Paul Kocken, resulting in the validated optimal models of children’s prevention-orientated primary health care.
Newsletter 2016 December: The second Annual General Meeting of the MOCHA project took place in Rome on the 20th October, hosted by the Department of Social Sciences and Humanities at CNR. The focus was on the increased collaboration between work packages. WP4 workshop was held for discussing and identifying the measures of quality and outcome that can be used by all research strands in the project in Padua (Italy) on the 10-11th October. WP5 has identified 147 anonymised case based primary care data sets in Europe.The focus of WP2 Workshop held on 30^th November-1^st December in Dublin was on how to appraise primary health care as well as how to extend our knowledge of the under-researched area of the interface between primary care services and other health services for children with complex care needs. By the end of November, D5 The Semantic Models of Key Clinical Conditions and Outcome Measures was completed to the EC.

Are you interested to attend the forthcoming events?

Conference of Medical Informatics Europe / Informatics for Health (24-26 April, Manchester) where Professor Michael Rigby, Dr Grit Kühne and Dr Daniela Luz will represent MOCHA project
MOCHA workshop on the Integration of health and social care for children with complex health conditions, an assessment of the policy and organisational context led by Dr Austin Warters from Trinity College Dublin at the International Conference on Integrated Care (8-10 May, Dublin)
European Health Management Association Conference on topics of Child Migrant Health Policy, E-Health Policy for Children, and Measurement of the Strength of Children’s Primary Care (13-15 June, Milan)
MOCHA workshop led by Professor Mitch Blair at the European Forum for Primary Care Conference (24-26 September, Porto)
DIPEx session on lessons learned about primary care from their interviews with children and young people at the International Society for Quality and Safety in Healthcare (ISQua) in London (1-4 October, London)

To lear more about MOCHA project and subscribe the newsletter, please visit MOCHA website.

The contact person at AER for MOCHA project is Johanna Pacevicius.

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ALEC: a success story

10 February, 2017 By Johanna Pacevicius

The fifth edition of the Artic Light E-health Conference in Norrbotten is an opportunity to look back on one of the major achievements of the AER e-health network. The event brought together 300 participants from 16 countries in the world this year around the themes of digital transformation & health equity.

Scale e-health awareness

The AER e-health network was created back in 2006 to support the deployment of e-health solutions and enable experience sharing. It has since been involved in the preparation and implementation of Smart Care, the largest EU deployment project of integrated care e-services and Engaged, a mutual learning network of diverse stakeholders in the field of IT innovation and active and healthy ageing. Since 2010 AER has also been an organising partner of the Arctic Light E-health Conference (ALEC) in Norrbotten which brings each time over 200 participants together to raise awareness, engage professionals, informal carers and patients around the deployment of e-health. The conference itself grew over time to become the major international event it is now.

“Houston, we have a problem? Norrbotten, we’ve got a solution!”

The ALEC conferences have allowed to take stock of the evolution in e-health over the past 7 years and more importantly to share experiences, good practices, stories… and the bumpy road to successful deployment.

Mutual learning and meaningful networking are among the main benefits participants mention when speaking about the ALEC experience. Over the years, speakers have included President Ilves of Estonia, who used to lead the EU working group on e-health, Sweden’s Minister of Digital Development Peter Eriksson, Dr. Robert Wah, CSC’s Global Chief Medical Officer and many other representatives from the care sector, business, academia and patients.

A multiplier effect

While the AER e-health network is a place to share and develop projects, it is also a multiplier for regional initiatives. As Agneta Granström said during the opening session of the ALEC 2017 conference “Alone we can only do so much. Together we can do everything”. This is also an encouragement for other regions to follow and use the tremendous potential of the network, not only in the field of e-health but also any other topic relevant to AER members.

Links

2012 ALEC press release

2014 ALEC press release

Committee 2 page

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ALEC 2017: accelerating Digital Health

27 January, 2017 By Editor

The 1 and 2 February 2017 the fifth Artic Light E-health Conference is taking place in Luleå, Sweden. Top-level thought leaders, politicians, business innovators and e-health professionals will meet to discuss and develop tools to design better health and networking.

Two main themes of the Conference: the Digital Transformation of Healthcare and Health Equity in the Digital Age.

The Digital Transformation of Healthcare

Digital Transformation is the whole scale change to the foundational components of healthcare: from its operating model to the infrastructure, from the services provided, to who receives them. It touches every function of healthcare: workforce training, HR, finance, reimbursement and evaluation models, through operations, technology, communication and business development.

Healthcare is affected by all changes occurring in society, from patient behaviours to tech, commerce and service sectors. Understanding the key challenges may let better understand which strategy to take and the priorities and capabilities needed to manage the digital transformation.

The key challenges are:

The level of maturity required for the health and social care system to adopt digital and integrated care solutions
The barriers hindering wide scale uptake of technology enabled care
The need to challenge the role of the health profession and reshape it for the digital transformation ahead.

Learning today how to build digital health eco-systems, innovative business models and accelerating the translation of ideas will help to catch up with the future transformations and build sustainable solutions.

The potential of digital healthcare lies in improving quality of care, boosting innovation, empowering patients and creating a sustainable healthcare system.

Health Equity in the Digital Age

The importance of dealing with Health Equity lies in the belief that everyone deserves a chance to lead a healthy life no matter the socio-economic status, demographic factors or the country of origin.

Digital health technologies can play an active role to reduce health disparities, improve health outcomes, and the potential of digital to improve access to high quality health information for vulnerable groups. How is the key question.

The key challenges of creating Health Equity are:

Providing care in underserved communities with poor healthcare and digital infrastructures
The barriers of low digital and health literacy for adoption of digital solutions among vulnerable groups
How technology has improved or hindered the delivery of quality care.

Accelerating innovation by sharing data can improve healthcare. Understanding how digital strategies empower people will make possible reaching remote communities, helping to eliminate health disparities, developing solutions that are adapted for people’s different physical and cognitive abilities, addressing low digital health literacy among vulnerable groups.

The evolution of new health technologies promises a better and deeper insights into people care needs and also through healthy beahviour changes, accelerating health development.

At ALEC there is the opportunity to understand the value of digital health and gain fresh perspectives, learning and being inspired by the global thought leaders shaping the future of digital health.

Photo credit Diana Robinson @Flickr http://tinyurl.com/hkglmad

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How low density regions are generating growth

17 October, 2016 By Editor

In the framework of the European Week of Regions and Cities, the Northern Sparsely Populated Areas (with regions from northern Sweden, Norway and Finland) and the Highlands and Islands of Scotland organised the workshop “Renaissance for Remote Rurban Regions through Research”. The well balanced panellists offered viewpoints from the European, national and regional level as well as the technical expertise of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECd) due to publish the 2016 Regional Outlook on the development of less densely populated areas. Although Dr José Enrique Garcilazo, Head of Unit, Rural and Regional Development at the OECD did not provide too much insight on the report (released a few hours later and now available), he did share detailed insight on some of the economic specificities low density regions.

A number of lessons can be drawn from the fact that data shows that some remote, low density areas are in fact creating more jobs and are more productive than some densely populated regions. First, the notion of innovation needs to be expanded. Traditionally innovation tends to be reduced to research and development (R&D) in cities. But innovation also happens in rural areas, in other forms and beyond R&D, with equal impact. The OECD stresses the importance of an integrated approach between innovation, human and infrastructure for optimum development and acknowledges that the regional level is the best level to apply that principle. The 2016 Regional Outlook speaks of “rural policy 3.0” where the development goal goes beyond “competitiveness” and aims to deliver a much more trendy “well-being”.

Ms Donna Chisholm, Head of Business Innovation and Growth Sectors, presented the strategic approach adopted by the Scottish Highlands and Islands Enterprise to move the area up the rank of the OECD listings. “We value and work with every single business in our region, providing support and grants for each business to take steps towards innovation”.

Professor Birgitta Bergvall-Kåreborn, Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Luleå University of Technology described the different measures and actions set up in Norrbotten (SE). She advocated for regions to put themselves on the forefront of test markets which would bring in state of the art research in regions. She gave the examples of Kiruna, as a test city for developing smart cities and regions in a cold climate; and test labs to improve the construction and operation of test data centres.

Ms Tove Sorensen, Norwegian Centre for e-Health Research, and Head of the WHO Collaboration Centre for Telemedicine and e-Health shared some recent development in the e-health sector with notions of patient empowerment, video conference but also still-imaging conference. She concluded with the message that developing e-health solutions is intended to bring added support to health facilities and is never used as an argument for closing facilities or reducing expenses.

Harri Malinen, Project Manager for Arctic Smartness Excellence, University of Lapland, presented the Lapland Arctic Smart Specialisation Strategy. With five business-driven clusters and fifteen cluster-based project initiatives (e.g. in H2020, Interreg Europa, NPA and Interreg Nord), and having developed the Arctic Smartness model as a brand and methodology, Lapland is intended to be the leading sparsely populated implementer of the S3 strategy in the EU by 2018.

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Norrbotten: Arctic Light e-Health Conference, 1-2 February 2017

19 September, 2016 By Editor

The Swedish region of Norrbotten is organising for the 5th consecutive year, the Arctic Light e-Health Conference 2017. ALEC is a captivating event uniting digital health professionals from across the globe in the arctic region of Norrbotten for two days of inspiration, networking and skill development. The event is hosted by the President of AER Committee 2, Ms Agneta Granström who is also the Chair of the AER e-health network.

Top-level politicians, digital health thought leaders, business innovators and e-health professionals will meet to experience thought provoking keynotes on digital transformation. Seize this opportunity to connect with peers to discuss digital’s potential to bridge health gaps, and develop tools to design better health for all. AER is a long time partner to ALEC and is recognised as leader in this field with its many years working on e-health and social innovation technologies. For the 2017 edition of ALEC, Ms Granström explains “we want, first, to focus on the digital transformation of healthcare and spot the necessary changes to get a better glimpse of what the digital health ecosystem looks like. Secondly, we want to explore how digitisation can be a key driver towards improved health equity and how to better design digital health services so that they can be used by all”

If you, like us, are passionate about leading the digital health transformation, designing inclusive health services, and adopting disruptive technologies to create health equity, ALEC 2017 is your forum.

‘Winter is coming’, so plan a memorable Arctic experience by booking one of the 16 daily flights to Luleå today.

Our event page.

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Reference site status for AER regions

8 September, 2016 By Johanna Pacevicius

A recognition of excellence

A Call for Reference sites 2016 was launched in December 2015 at the Conference of Partners of the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing.

A total of 74 regional and local organisations have now been awarded “Reference Site” status.

These organisations have demonstrated the existence of comprehensive strategies to advance innovation for active and healthy ageing, based on a “Quadruple Helix” model that includes stakeholders from industry, civil society, academia and government authorities at a regional and local level.

Investing in active and healthy ageing

Together these regions represent a commitment of over four billion € (2016-2019 period) to invest in innovative solutions that will lead to improvements in the quality of life of the ageing population, support efficiencies and sustainability of health and social care delivery and finally, stimulate economic growth and competitiveness. These investments will benefit an expected five million people in the next three years.

Scaling-up: IT innovation for the Silver Economy

The Reference Site status is granted to organisations, which have demonstrated excellence in: the development, the adoption of the scaling up of innovative practices for active and healthy ageing. All this being in line with the strategic objectives of the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing (EIP on AHA) and particularly the European Scaling Up Strategy for Innovation in Active and Healthy Ageing.

The Scaling Up strategy supports the European Commission priority of establishing a Digital Single Market to unlock online opportunities for digital products and services.

Stars for AER regions!

The European Innovation Partnership recognised 8 AER member regions with “reference site” status: Catalonia (ES) ****, City of Zagreb (HR)*, East of France (FR)**, Friuli Venezia Giulia (IT)***, Murcia (ES)**, Norrbotten (SE)***, Noorth Brabant Province (NL)***, Nouvelle-Aquitaine (FR)**.

Links

The official announcement and the full list of nominees is available on the Scale AHA website

More information on the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing

Upcoming events on e-health

“E-health: let’s find a common language”: AER event which will bring together companies & regional stakeholders on e-health and provide insights and free P2P meetings, information on funding etc to boost cooperation between stakeholders

European Summit on Innovation for Active and Healthy Ageing: Transforming the future of Health and Care in Europe: event organised by the European Commission

ALEC 2017 Accelerating Digital Health: the fifth Arctic Light e-Health Conference (ALEC), is a captivating event uniting digital health professionals from across the globe in the arctic region of Norrbotten for two days of inspiration, networking and skill development. Top-level politicians, digital health thought leaders, business innovators and ehealth professionals will meet to experience thought provoking keynotes on digital transformation.

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Baltic Rim Economies: special edition on the Arctic

1 July, 2016 By Editor

The Pan-European Institute publishes a discussion forum, Baltic Rim Economies (BRE), which deals with the development of the Baltic Sea region. In the BRE review, high level public and corporate decision makers, representatives of Academia, as well as several other experts contribute to the discussion.

Special issue on the future of the Arctic was published on 20.6.2016.

Expert articles:

Ola Elvestuen: 20 years of peaceful cooperation in the Arctic
Aleksi Härkönen: The role of Finland in Arctic cooperation
Hannele Pokka: Clean technology brings new prospects in the north
Marja-Leena Vuorenpää: The role of Barents cooperation in the development of the European Arctic
Fujio Ohnishi: The Arctic concert system and its challenges
Liu Xu: China-Russian Arctic cooperation: black gold and beyond
Timo Laukkanen: Action to enable more sustainable business in the Arctic
Gunn-Britt Retter: Challenges and opportunities in the development of the Arctic region from the perspective of the Saami
Satu Miettinen: Arctic design: creating innovation and competitive edge in the north
Rauno Posio: Visit Arctic Europe: making cross-border cooperation
Susan Chatwood & Greg Poelzer: Social determinants of health in Arctic regions
Ilona Mettiäinen: There is no “one-size-fits-all” in Arctic climate change adaptation
Veli-Pekka Tynkkynen: Russia’s Arctic paradoxes
Daria Gritsenko: What does the case of Sabetta tell us about the relationship between energy and regional development?
Andrey Shadurskiy: Russia’s LNG projects in the Arctic: still on track?
Tomoko Tabata: Demographic trend in the Russian High North
Masahiro Tokunaga: The Russian Arctic and environmental discourse
Shinichiro Tabata: Research on the socio-economic development of the Russian Far North
Eini Haaja & Hanna Mäkinen: Need for international research on international business in the Russian Far North

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Did you miss the General Assembly? Catch-up with our social media story

28 June, 2016 By Editor

Take a glimpse at what happened in Nordland (NO) from 22-23 June 2016 at our Bureau on (R)e-inventing Democracy, the General Assembly and the Keynote discussion on the devlopment in the High North, the Arctic. All the key moments are highlighted in our social media. Our pictures are available on our Facebook page.

Thank you to all active members on Twitter and Facebook.

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Video message of EU Commissioner Karmenu Vella at AER General Assembly

23 June, 2016 By Elin Berglie

EU Commissioner Karmenu Vella, responsible for Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, addressed the AER General Assembly on 23 June in a video message during the Keynote discussion on why the arctic dimension matters for all Europeans.

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Brokerage event in Partnership with ERRIN on health innovation: finished

Project development, Youth Mental Health: ongoing

Silver Economy Awards (SEED): ongoing

Models of Child Health Appraised (MOCHA): ongoing

Active and Healthy Ageing Network AHA-NET: cancelled

ACT2Bridge project – Actions to Support Regional Ecosystems on Health Innovation Research: postponed

AMID project for the inclusion of migrants with disabilities: ongoing

European network for harmonising self, society, and systems to facilitate integrated care, COST action proposal: cancelled

Project development, Social inclusion of vulnerable groups: ongoing

Project development, Combatting isolation and social exclusion: ongoing

Project development, Public-private cooperation for social inclusion: cancelled

Project development, Equal Health: cancelled

DIGIT-ABLE project: planned

Committees Autumn Plenaries in Nancy: finished

Committees Spring Plenaries in Arad: finished

INTERREG Europe Policy Learning Platform (IEPLP): finished

Event on a current transversal topic: finished

Follow up on ALEC: ongoing

Healthcare without harm: tbc

Equal opportunities: tbc

AER AT THE EUROPEAN WEEK OF CITIES AND REGIONS

Workshop on climate and energy transition: finished

Workshop on the Silver Economy: finished

Workshop of the INTERREG Europe Policy Learning Platform: finished

Cohesion Policy Activities: ongoing

AER Report on Regionalisation: ongoing

AER participation in the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing: ongoing

33rd Session of the Congress Local and Regional Authorities: ongoing

Contact

Evaluating progress

Projects

Brokerage event in Partnership with ERRIN on health innovation: finished

Project development, Youth Mental Health: ongoing

Silver Economy Awards (SEED): ongoing

Models of Child Health Appraised (MOCHA): ongoing

Active and Healthy Ageing Network AHA-NET: cancelled

ACT2Bridge project – Actions to Support Regional Ecosystems on Health Innovation Research: postponed

AMID project for the inclusion of migrants with disabilities: ongoing

European network for harmonising self, society, and systems to facilitate integrated care, COST action proposal: cancelled

Project development, Social inclusion of vulnerable groups: ongoing

Project development, Combatting isolation and social exclusion: ongoing

Project development, Public-private cooperation for social inclusion: cancelled

Project development, Equal Health: cancelled

DIGIT-ABLE project: planned

Good Practice Sharing

Committees Autumn Plenaries in Nancy: finished

INTERREG Europe Policy Learning Platform (IEPLP): finished

Event on a current transversal topic: finished

Follow up on ALEC: ongoing

Healthcare without harm: tbc

Equal opportunities: tbc

AER AT THE EUROPEAN WEEK OF CITIES AND REGIONS

Workshop on climate and energy transition: finished

Workshop on the Silver Economy: finished

Workshop of the INTERREG Europe Policy Learning Platform: finished

Advocacy/ Lobbying

Cohesion Policy Activities: ongoing

AER Report on Regionalisation: ongoing

AER participation in the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing: ongoing

33rd Session of the Congress Local and Regional Authorities: ongoing

Evaluating progress

Projects

Involvement of YRN in AER projects: ongoing

Project development, Youth Mental Health: ongoing

Silver Economy Awards (SEED): ongoing

Youth Caravan: ongoing

Project development, Cultural Heritage: ongoing

Good Practice Sharing

Committees Autumn Plenaries in Nancy: ongoing

INTERREG Europe Policy Learning Platform (IEPLP): ongoing

Event on a current transversal topic: ongoing

Cultural heritage: ongoing

AER Most Youth Friendly European Region: finished

Awareness-raising & engagement about Eurodyssey: ongoing

Par/Tea, culture and inclusion: ongoing

Culture & Health: tbc

Compilation of good practices on school dropouts: finished

Awareness raising on YRN activities: ongoing

Training on European regional affairs: ongoing

AER AT THE EUROPEAN WEEK OF CITIES AND REGIONS