<< Objectives >>This project aims to share knowledge, experiences, and deafblind practice between two organisations in different parts of Europe to gain invaluable new knowledge to implement in our daily work with people with deafblindness. We will collaborate to increase the awareness about deafblind issues for students, professionals, and the public. Achieving this will support the development of professions that work with people with deafblindness, which will increase participation and strengthen inclusion.<< Implementation >>Development of materials on deafblindness that will be available for a wide international audience is a central activity. We will do three theme days about deafblindness, cross-cultural issues, and knowledge sharing – two in Central Europe, and one in the Nordic countries. The project will be presented e.g. at the Nordic Conference, in an article, and a brochure. Various forms of knowledge sharing will make it possible to reach students and learners as well as professionals and experts.<< Results >>Increasing awareness and knowledge about deafblindness would be a substantial result. Both students in vocational education and training as well as students from higher education will benefit from this knowledge. The professionals working with deafblind issues will get new perspectives, and deafblind practice can be further specialised. In the long run this project will support the improvement of general conditions of life and reduce the marginalisation of people with deafblindness.

The two Danish Presidency conferences aim to contribute to the development of the research, innovation policies and frameworks within healthcare systems and life science through quadro helix partnerships. In European and global healthcare, the greatest challenges are the double demographic changes, lack of skilled staff, and the rising economic costs of healthcare systems and services. It is this complex and challenging situation that we aim to address. Both the European structures of healthcare systems and the life science ecosystem are essential to both citizens' health and the economy. Innovative medicines, new methods, and solutions are critical for improving healthcare outcomes and resilient healthcare systems across Europe and to boost the economic growth and competitiveness within Europe. The conferences are planned in close collaboration to ensure alignment and synergies. The Conference on Sustainability in Health Care is a two-day conference with up to 450-500 participants and will include keynotes, workshops, presentations, panel debates and extensive opportunities for networking and collaboration within transformation and integration of the cross sectoral health care systems. The output of the conference will be a White Paper to share with the stakeholders. The Conference on Life Science is a one-day high level conference and is expected to gather up to 300 participants from across Europe. The conference combines plenary sessions, pitches, panel discussions, and roundtable breakout sessions discussing relevant themes in the upcoming EU Life Science strategy. The conference provides recommendations that will be summarised in a report and used for possible input to Council Conclusions and as a white paper for the Life Science ecosystem. The Conference on Sustainability in Health Care will take place in Aalborg, Region Nordjylland on September 17-18th, 2025, and the Conference on Life Science will be held in Copenhagen, Region Hovedstaden on October 8th 2025

Over 60 million people in the EU live with cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), at an annual economic cost of +210B€. Despite being largely preventable, CVDs cause more than 18.5 million deaths every year. To combat this, we develop new instruments for assessing adverse changes in microcirculatory status linked to hypertension, chronic kidney disease (CKD) and heart failure (HF), leading to earlier detection of CVDs. The instruments are developed and validated in clinical trials. We integrate two state-of-the-art technologies leading to a novel innovation, 3D speckle tissue monitoring. In addition, we demonstrate a direct use-case for unobtrusive monitoring in a smart-toilet application. Global remote patient monitoring (RPM) systems market is expected to surpass 5 B$ by 2030 with CAGR of 20%. The demand for the RPM systems is rapidly growing among the old age population. Monitoring innovations targeting this group can reduce hospitalization and costly chronic conditions. Furthermore, the technology is closely linked to wearable remote monitoring. The global wearable technology market is expected to grow to 392 B$ by 2030 with CAGR of 13.9%. The opportunity is significant as the number of wearable users currently exceeds 1 billion globally and the developed technology targets similar markets. We currently estimate that with the new instrument and digital biomarkers we can reduce the healthcare burden by over 30% by preventing CVDs. Additionally, we are aiming to identify citizens at risk of developing hypertension, CKD and/or HF and by timely intervention, we expect to reduce indirect healthcare costs by over 20%. In conclusion, our solution will integrate two existing state-of-the-art methods and provide clearly new monitoring techniques to assess the microcirculatory status, revealing early signs of CVDs. We will provide an innovative solution to emerging digital unobtrusive health markets while helping the over 60 million Europeans suffering from CVDs.

Europe currently spends less on R&D than the US, Japan and many other countries. Meanwhile, Europe's public authorities are major consumers of goods and services. Public procurement accounts for about 19% of the GDP in the European Union and offers an enormous potential market for innovative products and services [1].The Europe 2020 Strategy sets a target of 3% of the EU's GDP to be invested in R&D by 2020. In this way, innovation has been incorporated into the new European Public Procurement Directives approved on 26th February 2014 [2] as a new public policy, at the same level as the social and environmental one, which should be promoted through contractual instruments.The new directives open up a number of opportunities for Public Procurement of Innovative solutions (PPI), while maintaining the basic requirements of competition, transparency, equal treatment and compliance with EU state aid rules.Likewise, the European Commission establishes, among other strategic priorities, to boost innovation through public procurement, and to improve SMEs access to public tender market.On the other hand, the European habitat sector, dominated by SMEs, provides 1 million direct jobs in 130 thousand companies generating an annual turnover of around EUR 96 billion, and their purchases represent 16% of the GDP.The “Study on the EU furniture market situation” highlights that R&D and innovation are crucial factors to maintain market positions [3]. Nevertheless, only a small number of European companies carry out industrial research activities in order to develop new materials or technology for furniture.At the same time, there is an increasing demand for smart health care services, whose costs are covered by public expenditures in all EU countries. Thus, a high number of habitat companies has appeared in the last few years that implement Ambient Assisted Living technologies to offer new products related to the eHealth sector. These new products benefit patients, in the form of a more efficient treatment, and reduce the treatment costs. Hence, supporting innovative practices in the health care sector is a crucial step towards improving the services.For that reason, the main objective of the HAePPI project is to develop a new learning curriculum on PPI in line with the needs of habitat and eHealth SMEs. An innovative and open resource programme of vocational education and training, which will provide an adapted curriculum to equip professionals with the specific, basic and transversal skills currently required for the public procurement of innovation.To reach the main objective, different activities will be carried out:1. Learning outcomes definition based on a complete analysis of current best practices on PPI and SMEs´ needs2. Joint Curriculum definition3. Development of the training materials with interactive tools4. Complete learning evaluation on a developed online e-learning platformIn order to achieve such purposes, a Strategic Partnership has put 6 entities together from different countries and expertise in the different fields of the proposed project: two Universities with high expertise in public procurement policies (UNIZAR and ULO); two clusters from different sectors, habitat and eHealth (AMUEBLA and iVITA); a Technology Park and a business organisation expert in innovation management (STP); and a macro-regional hotspot for health and innovation (ScanBalt). The consortium will be completed with several associated partners (business associations, universities, development agencies, etc.) that will be involved in different tasks and will ensure wide dissemination for the project results.Although a HAePPI training course will be launched for the habitat and eHealth sectors, the final beneficiaries of the results will be a great number of SMEs and public institutions around Europe. Therefore, the HAePPI project will have a high final impact on thousands of enterprises and therefore in the European economy.The HAePPI project will achieve the following results and benefits:- The outputs obtained will strengthen the education and training paths of SMEs managers and workers, equipping them with the necessary competences and skills to participate in public tenders of innovation.- Development of specific, basic and transversal competences and skills relevant for SMEs, such as management, entrepreneurship, leadership, digital and creativity skills, and language competence in the field of VET.- Promotion of creative and innovative practices in the habitat and eHealth sectors, such as the implementation of electronic devices or internet of things technology.- Foster the PPI as an essential instrument to achieve the Horizon 2020 targets and to improve innovation in Europe.[1] Guidance for public authorities on Public Procurement of Innovation. DG Enterprise & Industry[2] Directives 2014/23/EU; 2014/24/EU, and 2014/25/EU[3] Study on the EU furniture market situation. Csil