Innovation: Centre of Expertise for Healthy Ageing
Netherlands
AAI Domains:
Capacity and enabling environment (use of ICT)
Independent, healthy and secure living (physical exercise, independent living, increase share of healthy life expectancy)
There are many areas of society and public policy that require innovations to be developed, tested and evaluated if we are to meet the challenges that we face. The Dutch government has embraced and encouraged innovation by establishing a network of 25 centres for expertise focusing on a particular issue ranging from biomass to craftsmanship to water technology. For the purposes of MOPACT, the most relevant is the Centre of Expertise for Healthy Ageing (CoE HA) which is a public-private partnership that acts as the hub for activities in the relevant policy area.
CoE HA was initially funded by a €4 million grant from the Ministry of Education and is based at Hanze Univeristy in Groningen. The focus is on a life course approach to healthy ageing that covers people of all ages with seven major thematic areas: active lifestyle and sports, eHealth and technology, healthy food, youth and lifestyle, living and leisure care, labour and care, welfare and health care.
The CoE HA facilitates Innovation Workshops with partners from the public, private and voluntary/third sector in each of these thematic areas in order to develop innovative services and products. The aim is to foster partnerships by knowledge creation and exchange that can contribute to healthy ageing over the life course and create products and services for scaling up in the public sector, the market economy and civil society.
The CoE HA has five major functions starting with
applied research through innovation workshops to develop solutions
health innovation that develops and tests new products and ways of working
educational development to support innovation
business development to support innovative ideas into flourishing businesses
disseminating information and awareness to professionals, policy makers, entrepreneurs, researchers and students about the potential for social innovation and healthy ageing.
For example, in the active lifestyle and sports theme an innovation workshop to promote physical activity among older people developed a toolkit that could be used and a refresher training course for professionals. For active ageing diabetes, the innovation process focused on promoting a healthy and active lifestyle for people with pre-diabetes and the development of eHealth solutions and wearable technology to encourage physical activity.
An impressively wide range of social innovations across the thematic areas are underway and the CoE HA works with more than 160 partner organisations. These projects include eHealth and serious gaming for older people, exer-gaming for children with motor disabilities, the detection and prevention of clinical malnutrition in health care settings, improving the psycho-social treatments for children with dyslexia and ADHD, physical activity friendly design for public spaces and how workplace interventions can contribute to healthy ageing.
The CoE HA has been sufficiently successful to move to a financially self-sustaining operation through fees from partners for the services it offers and it is at the cutting edge of active ageing in the Netherlands and beyond.