Workshop 2: Mission-driven Health Ecosystems - From abstract Responsible, Research and Innovation practices to concrete business action

The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the challenges and pressures that European healthcare systems are facing. The challenges that need to be addressed include: an ageing population, increasing prevalence of chronic diseases, and limited access to healthcare services both during and post the COVID-19 era, to mention a few.

Science and technology are transformative forces that have granted humans the capacity to alter ecosystems, the Earth’s climate, and even the building blocks of matter and life itself. Research and innovation have improved our world and our lives in many ways and will most likely continue to do so. However, as well as the large positive impact on human welfare and wellbeing, science and technology sometimes create new risks and ethical dilemmas, fail to solve the problems they are meant to, and spur controversy.

In this changing and challenging time for the healthcare sector, responsible and participatory approaches to healthcare innovation can offer interesting reflections for different societal actors. Within the Health sector, there is a steadily growing number of innovative, new technologies being introduced in health systems (e.g. wearable devices, robotics, genomics, artificial intelligence, 3D printing, mobile applications, etc.) that raise complex challenges for all stakeholders, including policymakers, regulatory authorities, physicians and patients. The current ways in which new health technologies are being financed, developed, and brought to market make health systems increasingly inequitable and unsustainable.

The session aims to discuss how regional innovation ecosystems can improve citizens’ health and wellbeing and how different innovation players can collaborate. Different players of regional innovation ecosystems can play a role in this transition towards a more sustainable healthcare sector.

This session is brought to you by CHERRIES - Responsible Healthcare Ecosystems 

CHERRIES – RESPONSIBLE HEALTHCARE ECOSYSTEMS.

The CHERRIES project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement nº 872873. This document reflects only the author’s view and the Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.