With ageing populations in Europe and a shrinking work force, it’s a challenge for the society to provide high quality care and optimal living conditions for elderly people, at affordable cost. The introduction of both innovative products and services and new organization concepts in the healthcare sector will be crucial to meet this goal. This is an important trend and business opportunity, which has been recognized by many companies. The aim of the project was to enhance and accelerate the innovation process. Therefore it was our objective to give better information about the structure of health systems in the Two Seas Region to SMEs. A second objective was to bring the stakeholders in the value chain together and to make them develop together new business models and market approaches.

In the application form we defined it in this way: Develop and test new business models, communicative interactions and strategies for a smooth and win-win implementation of innovative products and services on the social care market.



The activities we planned to reach our objectives were:

1. Mapping the context (by desk and field research of the market for health and social care in the Two Seas Region)

2. Bridging the gap (by bringing together the stakeholders in the value chain, and based on the learning from activitiy 1 design proposals to break through the barriers for innovations in health.

3. Bringing into practice (by turning the forementioned learning into pilot projects, needed to prove that a new way of organising the innovation and collaboration process could work, and in the meantime analysing the business models which were used).

Activity 1: Mapping the Context

This activity aimed ad getting an idea in which context we had to establish the business acceleration.

A) Kick-off meeting: this was held in Bruges/Gits (Flanders) onm 28 Feb and 1 March 2011

B) Desk research. This activity has been performed in 2011. The desk research was performed in all regions and collated by ARU. The results are part of the business manual, which has been published in 2014

C) Field research. In 2011, partners in all regions have conducted a wide survey and interviews with SMEs and providers of health and social care. Results have been published in the final evaluation report.

D) the progress meeting for this activity was held on May 18/19 in Ipswich, UK

E) the research results have been revisited after the experiences from activities 2 and 3 in order to bee as effective as possible. The results are published in the final evaluation report as well.

F) Workshop on results of this activity took place on 1/2 Dec 2011 in Middelburg.



Activity 2: Bridging the Gap

This activity was intended to bridge the gap between the worlds of health and business and to stimulate innovations out of this connection.

A) Prepration meeting for this activity was held during the partner meeting in Ipswich (May 2011).

B) In all regions stakeholder conferences and focus groups have been organised

C) the progress meeting for this activity was on 3 October 2011 in Lille.

D) ARU has investigated on basis of these results, and in relation with the pilots of act. 3 what the business potential is. For this, we've used the business model canvas. The crossborder potential was investigated a.o. in the crossborder conference.

E) This crossborder conference was organised together with the 2 Seas Trade-project on 3 October 2013 in Sandwich, Kent (UK).

F) final workshop is held during the partner meeting on 18/19 June 2012 in Lille.



Activity 3: Bringing into Practice

A) Preparatory meeting was part of the partner meeting on 18/19 June 2012 in Lille.

B) 9 pilot cases have been started, which can be divided into three groups:

Network development: 1. Santé Zeeland (Impuls) and 2. East of England Assistive Technology Network (HEE).

New Business Models: 1. Entrance project (Eurasanté) 2. Non-Medical Services pilot (KATHO/RESOC Brugge)

Co-creation through collaboration: 1. Memory Signal Test and 2. Concept homes (both Impuls) 3. lighting in a care home (RESOC MidWFl/KHBO) 4. Diagnostic service for paediatric diabetes (WSH) 5. Dragon's Den project in East of England (SCC).

C) Strengthening crossborder network: this has been done by visiting each others acivities and exchange of expertise during the partner meetings.

D) Project evaluation has been performed by ARU (cf. the published report).

E) Fertilising the soil: In some regions there have been strong actions to influence regional policy makers, with good results in Zeeland and West-Flanders. Also actions to establish sustainable networks after the project have been succesful (Santé Zeeland en EoEAT-network)

F) Final conference took place on 13 March 2014 in Middelburg.

Activity 1:

The industry interview was sent to over 500 SMEs. We received responses from 175 SMEs.

The report on this is part of the final evaluation

Industry interviews have been conducted to 48 SMEs and 54 providers of health and social care

All reports and inventories are part of the final evaluation report.

fact finding trips took place during the partner meetings in Brugge (1 March 2011); Suffolk (18/19 May 2011); Middelburg (2 December 2011).

Activity 2:

In the end 17 meetings have been organised to get into touch with the different stakeholders. The overview of the initiatives by ARU as part of the evaluation, as such it played a role in meetings preparing activity 3.

The same can be said for the pre-selection of most promising cases.

The crossborder conference took place on 3 October 2013 in Sandwich (Kent, UK)

matchmaking was part of the crossborder conference.

Proposals for business models were also a part of activity 3, which the business models shaped further.

Activity 3:

we had 9 pilots, which have been described already.

new business cases into progress: cf the canvas business models per pilot case, described in the final evaluation report.

intervision and exchange (mentioned as part of the transnational workshops) is organised by crossborder visits of regional activities: 1. Flemish partners had a study visit in EoE, concerning non-medical services in May 2012. Impuls attended the Market Engagement Event of SCC in November 2013. 3. Impuls visited the West-Flemish conference on 26 Febrary 2014 and 4. RESOC MWFl visited Impuls inspiration sessions, and both have explored opportunities for crossborder activities concerning healling environment, which turned out to be not-feasible.

sustainable networks: Santé Zeeland and EoEAT-network still exist after the project.

Yes, the key activities (workshops, stakeholder meetings and pilots) took place in all regions.
Partner meetings have been organised in all region. Only for logistic reasons, Lille was used more often as a meeting place.

This is different per region, because of the different nature of the partners.

In France the focus was strong on the key stakeholders of Eurasanté: SMEs. So the outcome is that they have better access to social care market.

In West-Flanders, aparter fom the learnings from the pilots (with mainly the well-being lessons concerning lighting in elderly care), there is also a provincial strategy for boosting the care economy, which aims on profits both for both the public and private sector.

In East of England, the very concret pilot from WSH results in improved remote diagnostics for children, although it also learned that it is not obvious that these new tehcnologies are taken up soon. Further the SCC learned to engage with SMEs, which was very useful, and surely will enhance the opportunities for reigional SMEs to penetrate the market of social care.

In Zeeland, the lasting results are the three pilot projects: Santé Zeeland is still continuing in bringing professionals together and maintaining the network. De Zeeuwse Huiskamer (the concept home-pilot) is on a higher level now, and funded by the province of Zeeland. This project enhances new service design towrads independent living. The Memory Signal Test is funded by a healthcare insurance provider with a half million grant for 2014 and executed on a large scale at the moment, aiming at bringing early diagnosis to the home situation.

A better understanding of the differences between the regions and the differences in policy. It was also good to have research expertise in the project, which was not available in all regions. Further, it helped to see that all regions are struggling with similar issues, even when the differences of health systems appear to be so big.

Yes, with the 2 seas trade project.
And in Health Cluster Europe we develop synergy with 14 other EU-projects

Be very explicit in what you expect from each other.
The same, for the financial issues. In a big project, it is not easy to have an equal share of the common burden (projectmanagement and communication).
There is a lot to learn crossborder. Take time for getting to know each other.

As explained already, the results are brought into two cluster projects: Health Cluster Europe and Biz4Age.
Further, in the regions there is continuing activity. Some of the pilot cases are sustaining as project, funded by third parties.

In the cluster project Biz4Age, ARU, POM and Impuls are working together. Also partners from 2 seas trade are on board. In that partnership new opportunities are explored.

In the regions for follow up project there has been searched for additional funding, e.g. de Zeeuwse Huiskamer (province of Zeeland) and Memorie Signaal Test (insurance provider). Yet, we still expect that in the future the 2 seas programme will be a good partner for developing new projects. With the Biz4Age-partners, we will start thinking about those oppportunities.