On Friday, November 25, 2016, on the premises of the National Institute for Research and Development in Informatics - ICI Bucharest, took place the HoCare conference and work meeting dedicated to all those interested in innovative home care solutions for the elderly as part of the international project HoCare "Delivering Innovative Solutions for Home Care by enhancing quadruple-helix cooperation in regional innovation chains", co-financed by the European Commission in the Interreg Europe program. The project received 1.2 million Euro for the period 2016-2020 and has a consortium of seven other European institutions.
The event took place on the ICI premises, with the participation of ICI General Director, Dr.Eng. Gheorghe-Decebal Popescu, Senior Researcher I DCompSci & DMath Gabriela Florescu, director of the HoCare project, partner of ICI- Romania. The event was a real success, with state and private institutions with activity in this field expressing a strong interest. Thus, the following institutions had representatives at the event: the Ministry of Communications and Information Society – OIPSI (POC Intermediary Entity), the Ministry of European Funds - Managing Authority for the Operational Program for Competitiveness, the Ministry of National Education and Scientific Research - National Agency for Scientific Research and Innovation (POC Intermediate Entity), the Ministry of Economy and Trade and the Business Environment - SME, the Institute of Virology, Ana Aslan International Foundation, the Association for Dialogue and Civic Education Romania - HomeCare, Home Health Care Solutions, Representatives of the University of Medicine and Pharmacy and of the Politehnica University of Bucharest - Faculty of Medical Engineering. All these representatives have expressed their support for this event and project.
In the first part of the meeting, Dr. Florescu described the European Interreg program and the opportunities brought by the HoCare project through offering innovative home care solutions for the elderly. By this, the institutions in our country with activities in this field can successfully access European Structural Funds through operational programs with calls for 2014-2020 and beyond. He showed that, following the research carried out at European level, this area is already generating a fast-growing market that has a huge economic potential and creates opportunities for growth and new jobs. In this context the project's history was presented as well as its specific topic, the main objective and secondary goals and the paradigm of the Quadruple Helicoid, which represents a novelty at national and European level – making our country a pioneer of applied research and innovation. Moreover, it has been shown that this paradigm can be applied in any field of research and innovation.
In the second part, the partners from the eight countries participating in this international project were introduced: the National Institute for Research in Informatics in Romania, the Business Development Institute in Portugal, the DEX Innovation Center in the Czech Republic, the Lithuanian Innovation Center, the Nicosia Development Agency - Cyprus, the Development Center of the Heart of Slovenia, the Business Agency Association of Bulgaria, and the National Healthcare Service Center in Hungary.
Dr. Florescu demonstrated how, by applying the Quadruple Helicoid method, the partners will initiate innovation chains at national level with connections at trans-European level, involving public authorities, research and academic institutions, economic entities and civil organizations. They will work together to generate improved policy instruments, innovative models and user-oriented innovative products that deliver results as close as possible to the real world needs and produce structural changes well beyond the scope of what any of these entities could do it on their own. He showed how based on the principles of integrated collaboration, where several factors can participate in the innovation process, jointly created and shared value will be developed. Also, innovation ecosystems and technologies with exponential development rate and ultra-fast adoptions will be facilitated.
During the workshop, introduced themselves, discussed and presented their HoCare-related activities, showing their interest in the new Quadruple Helicoid research and innovation method and the full openness of working together and active participation to the project.
In conclusion, it was shown that the list of stakeholders - interested legal entities and individuals remains open and the further development plan of the HoCare project was presented. The main goal of the HoCare project is to stimulate the generation of innovative home care solutions for elderly people by strengthening cooperation between actors in national innovation and trans-European ecosystems using the Quadruple Helicoid approach.
