Projects

SENIOR ENTERPRISE INITIATIVE

The Mid-East Region in Ireland, along with two partner regions in Brittany and UK, has received final approval by Interreg 4B NW Europe for the "Senior Enterprise" Initiative. This proposal, which was developed by the SEN@ER Network, and will include 9 Observer Regions in Germany, Holland and Luxemburg, will support and tap into the potential of people over 50. The objective is to increase the proportion of older people engaging with enterprise through giving them different choices to suit their circumstances and lifestyle. The Partners have developed a coordinated programme, which form separate but linked work packages, which are:

1. Raising awareness of Senior Enterprise
2. Starting and partnering businesses
3. Investing in and acquiring a business
4. Advising and supporting business innovation

This work programme will engage a variety of players and stakeholder, will be tailored to specific regional requirements and tested through a variety of means. The tested initiative will be transferable to other regions and will be used to attract further EU funding in this area. An interesting outcome of the project will be the creation of a European "Senior Enterprise Association", which will be a transnational "Club" of people wishing to engage with business and enterprise.

INDEPENDENT - ICT Enabled Service Integration for Independent Living The project with SEN@ER participation submitted to the CIP programme is a CIP ICT PSP Pilot Type B proposal addressed to ICT PSP Objective identifier: 1.3 ICT for ageing well / independent living.

The INDEPENDENT project will define, deliver and pilot a digital infrastructure supporting coordinated cross-sector delivery of timely support to prevent older people from slipping out of safe independent living, maintaining quality of life. The infrastructure enables support services to overcome limitations of sectoral telehealth and telecare and empowers informal carers and the voluntary / third sector to participate in delivery of support, thus radically improving efficiency. ICT use is extended from the high needs end to a stage where not care but preventative support is needed. "People" services for Daily Living and Activation (DALS) and Continued Wellness (CWS) break open current 'silos' in service delivery to cross-sectoral cooperation and participation of family and voluntary staff. The architecture recognises that integration of consumer and other widely available devices must be achieved and open interface standards adopted.

The innovative new services will be piloted at six sites across the Europe. Users are to be older people living independently with light to severe care or support needs, care professionals, informal carers and voluntary helpers / charity workers. Interested adopters in the public sector will be presented with guidance for uptake and evidence of all intended impacts.

The project brings together 20 organisations across 6 Member States representing all major stakeholders in the "value chain" of support to older people, from public authorities and social and health service providers to global industry players and specialist SMEs. Authorities are represented on dedicated advisory board, as are user groups at European level. Philips and Tunstall as the major players in their respective fields are very well positioned to fully exploit the results, bringing INDEPENDENT services within the reach of all EU citizens.

eSESH - Saving Energy in Social Housing with ICT

The project with SEN@ER participation submitted to the CIP programme is a CIP ICT PSP Pilot Type B proposal addressed to ICT PSP Objective identifier: 4.1: ICT for energy efficiency in social housing. The SEN@ER partner involvement includes the Regional Ministry of Infrastructure, Housing and Transport of Extremadura, Regional Ministry of Industry, Energy and Environment of Extremadura; Distribuidores de Energ�a El�ctrica from Extremadura, Spar- und Bauverein Solingen eG, Ingenieur- und Planungsgemeinschaft ENVI-GmbH and empirica, all three from NRW.

The project addresses the need to reduce energy consumption of the residential sector in Europe by a very significant amount to meet overall emission reduction targets. Building on first generation services today providing feedback on energy consumption to social housing tenants, advanced Energy Awareness Services (EAS) will be provided delivering tenants with direct timely and comprehensible feedback on the impact of their energy behaviour on a full range of energy types, thereby enabling tenants to help us all save energy and themselves avoid fuel poverty. Smart metering applications will be deployed to automatically avoid peak consumption and otherwise optimise the timing of domestic consumption in line with supplier requirements and tariffs as well as controlling delivery of locally generated power from renewables in a comprehensive set of Energy Management Services (EMS) for the social housing sector. Data from meters will also be used to guide energy policy decisions at regional level and investment priorities of social landlords.

"CULTUREMAP - Study on the mapping and evaluating of existing platforms (websites) within the cultural sector aimed at stimulating debate and cross border exchange of matters concerning European culture"

CULTUREMAP is a study in response to General Invitation to Tender No. EACEA/2008/06 by the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (European Commission DG Education and Culture) coordinated and run by partners from NRW (empirica, IBK Remscheid together with partners from the www.age-culture.net and a further partner from Spain)

The objective of this project are to map and analyse existing websites in Europe which are used as a means for exchange of information and debate on culture, artistic expression and as a space for an exchange of opinions on the European project, with a view to proposing recommendations on how to enhance the use of the internet as a means of information exchange and debate at the European level on cross-sector issues in the field of culture and artistic expression. This is based on what has been set out in the agenda for culture with which the Commission aims at pursuing a structured dialogue with the cultural sector. This should provide a framework for the regular exchange of views and best practices, input into the policy-making process, follow-up and evaluation. The cultural sector is progressively structuring itself and new platforms are emerging. With this mapping study the Commission wants to get an overview of the existing websites in Europe aimed at the exchange of information and debate on the European project between artists of all art disciplines, cultural workers, practitioners, cultural organisation managers, producers, promoters, researchers, journalists, operators in the cultural area, mentors, teachers, art students, distributors, theatres, museums, cultural heritage organisations, etc and the broader public.

"COMMONWELL - Common Platform Services for Ageing Well in Europe"

COMMONWELL is a CIP ICT PSP Pilot Type B addressed to Objective 2.2 "ICT for ageing well" with SEN@ER partner involvement from NRW and Yorkshire to improve quality of life for older people and support independent living though integration of health and social care

As part of the EU initiative to promote better quality and more economically efficient solutions for the provision of health and social services, an innovative project with participants from five European countries has been launched, with Tunstall Healthcare Ltd from the SEN@ER partner region Yorkshire and the Humber leading the technical work. The CommonWell project aims to support independent living and improve the quality of life for older people and those with long-term conditions.

12 partners are cooperating in the project, supported financially by the European Commission and coordinated empirica GmbH from the SEN@ER region of North Rhine-Westphalia, to deliver ICT-enabled health and social care services in four Member States. The integrated services are to support the effective management of chronic disease, and to address issues which affect independence, such as reduced agility, vision or hearing, in order to significantly improve the quality of life for older people and their families. The project members are Tunstall Healthcare (from the SEN@ER region Yorkshire), Milton Keynes Council, Stichting Smart Homes, Evangelisches Johanneswerk und Johanneswerk im Stadtteil (both from the SEN@ER region NRW), Empresa P�blica de Emergencias Sanitarias, Fundaci�n Andaluza de Servicios Sociales, InterSystems, Work Research Centre and empirica Communication and Technology Research (also from NRW acting as coordinator)

InCreaSe - Intercultural Creativity of Seniors: A Travelling European Academy

SEN@ER partner regions and those from the age-culture.net network a currently working on a Grundtvig learning partnership under the coordination of the Institut f�r Bildung und Kultur e.V. from North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany and involving partners from 8 countries. InCreaSe is a travelling training academy for cultural learning and participation of older people in Europe. During the two-year partnership the expert partners will meet in each others' countries to exchange models of good practice in different specialisms. These involve different ethnic groups and generations, 'keyworking', volunteering for culture, theatre and media work. The overall aim is to develop training modules for implementation at a yearly "European Summer School".

More information is available here: www.age-culture.de

AAMEE - Active Ageing of Migrant Elders across Europe

2 October 2008 - The AAMEE project has been launched by the SEN@ER partner region North Rhine-Westphalia in response to the impact of demographic change as one of the greatest challenges facing the European Union and a key element to promote economic and social inclusion within the EU.
Within the growing group of elders, minority ethnic and migrant elders have become an important new target group. They also have a great deal of potential and competence especially regarding their contribution to society, notably as volunteers, but also as workers and regarding cultural and economic potential.
The AAMEE project comprises of the following activities:

• Two European good practice competitions "Active Ageing and Social, Cultural and Economic Integration of Migrant Elders in Europe", addressing a) voluntary organisations and b) local authorities and NGOs - for further details on the competition criteria please refer to the www.aamee.eu website
• The 1st European conference "Migrant Elders across Europe - from Challenges to Opportunities", 30 September - 2 October, 2008, venue World Conference Centre Bonn http://www.worldccbonn.com
• Six good practice exchange programmes for voluntary organisations from different European countries;
• The development of a checklist on how to stimulate and strengthen voluntary work of and with migrant elders in Europe;
• A good practice booklet containing recommendations for new activities and initiatives concerning active ageing for migrant elders within Europe;
• The adoption and implementation of a research agenda and the establishment of a scientific research network;
• The adoption of a memorandum formulating guidelines and principles on how to sensitise societies and governments for the concerns as well as potentials of migrant elders.

The AAMEE project aims at generating a broad basis of actors - e.g. NGOs, voluntary organisations, local authorities, researchers, policy makers and supporters from various economic areas - from all over Europe.
The AAMEE project is funded by the Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities of the European Commission within the ENEA programme (VP/2007/009 ENEA). The project has been initiated and is co-financed by the Ministry of Health, Equalities, Care and Ageing of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany (MGFFI NRW).

Further information can be obtained from the website www.aamee.eu

SOPRANO - Service Oriented PRogrammable smArt enviroNments for Older Europeans

Partners from several SEN@ER regions from Yorkshire, North Rhine-Westphalia, North West Region and Andalucia are currently cooperating in the development of independent living systems and services with European funding through the European Commission IST Programme which is part of the Framework Programme 6. Several partners from SEN@ER regions are involved in the project.

SOPRANO is the acronym for "Service Oriented PRogrammable smArt enviroNments for Older Europeans". SOPRANO will design and develop highly innovative, context-aware, smart services with natural and comfortable interfaces for older people at affordable cost, meeting requirements of users, family and care providers and significantly extending the time we can live independently in our homes when older. User friendliness and acceptability is top priority for the project - a zero-slope learning curve is to be achieved and inter-faces are to "vanish" into domestic settings. Large-scale viability in real homes will be demonstrated with 600 users to raise public awareness and accelerate AAL (Ambient Assisted Living) exploitation.

The project will run for 40 months and its budget is around 12 million Euros of which 7 million are funded by the Commission. The major industry partner is the Tunstall Group Ltd (United Kingdom) with its headquarters located in the SEN@ER partner region of Yorkshire.

Partners from four SEN@ER regions take part in this project: Andalucia (FASS Fundaci�n Andaluza de Servicios Sociales), North Rhine-Westphalia (PROSYST SOFTWARE GMBH, empirica GmbH) and the North West Region (University of Liverpool). In two SEN@ER regions SOPRANO fields trials will be carried out and demonstrators installed.

More information is available here: http://www.soprano-ip.org

MobilAlarm - a location-independent emergency service

MobilAlarm was a project in which a location-independent emergency service was piloted in several European regions including the SEN@ER regions Andalucia and Yorkshire and involving further partners from these regions and North Rhine-Westphalia and Yorkshire including - amongst others - the Tunstall Group.

This European market validation project - financially supported by the European Commission eTen programme was successfully concluded and the service is now available on the market.

The European MobilAlarm project tested an innovative, location-independent alarm service which enables older people, those concerned about safety, the chronically ill, and the disabled to initiate an alarm call whenever and wherever they need or want to do so, thus improving their quality of life. The marketability and potential use of the service was studied. Partners representing the whole value chain were involved in this project - from device manufacturers via the service centres to patient associations. Across Europe, 5.5 % of all households with people older than 50 are connected to a conventional, location-dependent social alarm service. According to current market research, the number of people using alarm services will increase dramatically over the decades to come, and there is evidence that the demand for location-independent alarm service provision will rise at an even faster rate as a result of changes in lifestyles and habits. MobilAlarm aims to provide a simple solution to meet these requirements.

Following the successful completion of the project, the MobilAlarm device and service has been introduced to the market by the Tunstall company with its headquarters in Yorshire.

A product description in English is available here.

Click here for information in German language.