STATE OF PLAY OF ACTION GROUP D4

STATE OF PLAY OF ACTION GROUP D4

EUROPEAN INNOVATION PARTNERSHIP ON ACTIVE AND HEALTHY AGEING

Innovation for Age-Friendly Buildings, Cities and Environments

Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2015

Electronic version:ISBN 978-92-79-52726-5doi:10.2875/121652Catalogue number: EW-01-15-834-EN-N

Paper version:ISBN 978-92-79-52725-8doi:10.2875/94641Catalogue number: EW-01-15-834-EN-C

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1D4 Action Group on Innovation for Age-Friendly Buildings, Cities and Environments

November 2015

AuthorsHorst Krämer, Policy Officer, DG CONNECT, European Commission

Eibhilin Manning, Policy Officer, DG SANTE, European Commission

Anne-Sophie Parent, AGE Platform Europe

Julia Wadoux, AGE Platform Europe

Willeke Van Staalduinen, TNO Innovation for Life

Menno Hinkema, TNO Innovation for Life

Irene Monsonís Payá, Polibienestar, Research Institute - University of Valencia

Mireia Ferri Sanz, Polibienestar Research Institute - University of Valencia

Roberto Zuffada, AG D4 Promoter 2015-2016, CSA PROEIPAHA

With many thanks to all the AG D4 Partners who provided inputs, data and suggestions for this publication.

DisclaimerThe information and views set out in this publication are those of the authors and

do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the Commission. The Commission does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included. Neither the Commission nor the

Action Groups may be held responsible for the use which may be made of the information contained therein.

© European Union, 2015. All rights reserved. Certain parts are licensed under conditions to the EU.

Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged.

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D4 Action Group on Innovation for Age-Friendly Buildings, Cities and Environments

Contents

1. Executive Summary ................................................................................................................... 3

2. Rationale of Innovation Age-Friendly Buildings Cities and Environments Action Group ................................................................................................. 4

3. Action Group Description ....................................................................................................... 5

3.1 Role & Objectives ................................................................................................................... 5

3.2 Governance & Coordination .................................................................................................. 5

3.3 Structure ..................................................................................................................................... 6

3.4 Action Areas of the AG ............................................................................................................. 6

4. Activities & Achievements .....................................................................................................12

4.1 General Results ......................................................................................................................... 12

4.2 Achievements .......................................................................................................................... 13

5. Conclusions and Future Activities ...................................................................................... 18

6. Annex ..............................................................................................................................................19

List of Figures

Figure 1. Governance Structure of the Action Group D4 ..................................................... 5

Figure 2. Action Group achievements: commitments planned vs completed ................. 6

Figure 3. Results achieved by individual commitments ....................................................... 13

Figure 4. Results achieved by collaborative works ............................................................... 17


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1. Executive Summary

The European Commission launched the pilot European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing (EIP on AHA) in 2010 under the Europe 2020 Flagship Initiative Innovation Union1. The partnership brings together public and private stakeholders across boards and sectors to accelerate the uptake of innovation, with the goal of increasing by two years the average healthy life years of EU citizens by 2020.

Six of the priority actions were launched in 2012.

The D4 Action Group, on “Innovation for Age-friendly buildings, cities & environments”, active since July 2012, involves regional and local authorities from across the EU, European NGOs, technology providers, research centres, and SMEs.

In this framework, the Action Group D4 had two main objectives:

• to contribute to achieve 2 additional healthy life years for older people in the EU by accelerating the promotion, take-up and implementation of supportive physical and social environments to support active and healthy ageing throughout the EU, and

• to achieve this by fostering greater participation of older citizens, greater pan-European public and private stakeholder and cross-sectorial collaboration, and greater exploitation of age-friendly innovation including the take-up of ICT solutions.

In the D4 Action Group, around 100 partners engaged about 390 commitments towards four areas of interest addressing

the implementation of policy strategies at local and regional level for the creation of age-friendly environments, the set up of a Covenant targeting demographic change, issues of the spatial context and innovative solutions based on ICT promoting age-friendly environments.

D4 Action Group has been characterised by a horizontal and multidisciplinary nature both in terms of participating partners and addressed themes.

At the end of the period 2012-2015 around 44% of the planned commitments can be considered achieved, and another 12% are still in progress. Most of these commitments are represented by regulations, recomendations, guidelines, and plans for the implementation of age-friendly environment policy strategies.

Advocacy, education and empowerment mechanisms have been critical outputs as well as databases, repositories and data collections, studies and analysis, and com-munication and awareness raising activities. Finally, the exchange of good practices and the creation of synergies amongst working groups are to be mentioned as main out-comes achieved by the Action Group.

The Action Group has produced twenty-six deliverablesdocumenting individual commit-ments and common works.

Several synergies have been detected with other Action Groups – patient empowerment, healthy life-style interventions, chronic diseases management – and other existing projects. Finally, emerging themes of novel interest have been raised such as age-friendly tourism, dementia supportive environment, the Silver Economy and urban design.

1. Europe 2020 Flagship Initiative Innovation Union COM(2010) 546 Final

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2. Rationale of Innovation Age-Friendly Buildings Cities and Environments Action Group

Physical and social environments are key determinants of whether people can remain healthy, independent and autonomous long into their old age.

Within age-friendly environments, older peo-ple can age in better physical and mental health, be more socially included, actively participating in their communities’ lives, and maintain a good quality of life. Age-friendly environments also enable older workers to remain at work for longer, lower the pressure on traditional care and boost the economy through demand for innovative solutions, mainly ICT-based ones.

In order to support longer living and greater societal participation and integration of older people, cities and regions in Europe have a major role and need to encourage more physically and mentally active lifestyles, and provide places that are safe and accessible, promoting participation, respect and awareness. Innovation must be introduced specifically in public transport, urban planning and services (such as healthcare, social care, and tourism) in order to take into consideration specific needs of older people and enable greater societal participation. These goals cannot be met by cities or regions in isolation: building international multidisciplinary networks for innovation, evidence development and common guidelines is crucial.


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3. Action Group Description

3.1 Role & Objectives

The D4 Action Group has targeted the goals and tackled the challenge of adapting environments to an increasingly ageing European population.

Within its four Action Areas (AA), THE Action Group has brough together partners and stakeholders:

• to pursue parallel implementation strategies for the creation of age-friendly environments in partnership with older persons;

• to build and run a campaign for the launch of an EU Covenant on demographic change;

• to undertake parallel research programmes into the links between accessible spatial context and wellbeing of older people; and

• to support joint initiatives that increase the effectiveness of innovative solutions based on ICT products, applications and services in order to promote age-friendly environments.

3.2 Governance & Coordination

The multi-disciplinary group has worked at a regional and local level, as well as in an EU context, to analyse integrated approaches to policies and strategies, and explore new ways to promote active and healthy ageing. The D4 Action Group brings together regional and local authorities from across the EU, European, NGOs, technology providers, universities, research centres, SMEs and other stakeholders.

Figure 1 illustrates the governance structure of the Action Group and the interaction between involved actors.

Figure 1. Governance Structure of the Action Group D4

European Commission

Action Areas Coordinators

Conference of partners

Face to Face meetings

Yammer

Webinars

AA1 - Regional Implementation

AA2 - European Covenant on

Demographic Change

AA3 - Spatial Context AA3 - Smart Environment

Progress Reports

Deliverables

Dissemination

D4 Action Group

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3.3 Structure

After the two rounds of calls for commitments launched by the European Commission, about 100 partners expressed around 390 commitments (Figure 2). Of these, around 56% can be considered completed or still in progress and provide significant indicators of achievements which will be further described in the following sections.

Figure 2. Action Group achievements: commitments planned vs completed

3.4 Action Areas of the AG

The Action Group activities covered specifically the following areas:

• AA1. Implementing policies and practices for regions, cities and communities: the partners share their local experiences to promote better involvement of the elderly and implement strategies for the creation of age-friendly environments in partnership with older persons.

• AA2. Networks promoting a European Covenant on demographic change: awareness raising at European level and a repository of good examples to promote

effective age-friendly environments across Europe with the goal to build and run a campaign for the launch of an EU Covenant on demographic change.

• AA3. Spatial context: collaboration between research centres and programmes to better understand the links between older people’s wellbeing and their urban environment.

• AA4. ICT and smart environment: promotion of ICT products and services adapted to older people’s needs, through the promotion of a better access to urban services, higher autonomy and home services.

Within this Action Group framework, additional themes have been addressed according to the members’ interest to broad the perimeter of the domains in the light of their own interest. More specifically the following can be identified:

- Age-friendly tourism for an active and healthy ageing

- Dementia supportive environment

- Silver economy and

- Urban disegn

3.4.1 Action Area 1 – Implementing Policies and Practices for Regions, Cities and Communities

The objective of AA1 was to bring together partners to pursue parallel implementation strategies for the creation of age-friendly environments in partnership with older persons.

Planned Archieved In progress

Not started

Not reported

387

168

446

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To meet this objective, the following seven tasks have been undertaken:

• 1.1 setting up mechanisms to engage the voice and participation of older people in planning and implementation – such as older peoples’ fora

• 1.2 setting-up multi-agency and multi-sector stakeholder mechanisms – such as regional alliances

• 1.3 implementing new practices and sharing them in the repository

• 1.4 exploring new pan-European partnerships and initiatives

• 1.5 promoting life-long learning and capability development

• 1.6 increasing public awareness of active and healthy ageing

• 1.7 bringing forward a recognition system to acknowledge the contributions of older people and to encourage change and improvement in service provision

The first task of this Action Area has been devoted to identifying mechanisms, set up at regional and local level, enabling to connect the voice of older people in place and demonstrate that this is being heard thus increasing their empowerment and participation. A relevant number of commitments have been reported under this task covering experiences – still ongoing or concluded – in France, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and the UK. A first group of initiatives are strictly related to the elaboration and adoption of policy strategies and implementation programmes for increasing the role of older people and their representatives in the public and social life of the city/region. A second cluster

specifically addresses the issue of “people with dementia” offering services and platforms for patients and carers with the aim of influencing national/regional strategies, and informing future government policies and service provision. Finally, a third group of actions deals with the promotion of elderly participation through different initiatives, campaigns and studies in field of tourism, housing and well-being.

Complementary to the activities reported in the previous task, partners put in place monitoring actions, reports and dissemination of programmes and plans for activating stakeholders from different sectors to coordinate policies and promote integrated strategies seeking to influence local, national and EU policy.

It was not in the scope of this Action Area to create a database collecting examples of good practice and strategies. However, a number of individual commitments provide samples of repositories established at local level for sharing experiences and reporting good practices, which finally have contributed to populate the repositories activated through the EIP on AHA.

The development of partnerships across countries and collaboration projects and programmes on the themes of active ageing environments for regions, cities and communities has been one of the major

tasks addressed by the members of this Action Area. Tangible results have been achieved in terms of transnational initiatives carried out in the Nordic Countries, Italy, UK and Ireland.

Opportunities for lifelong learning for stakeholders, older people, informal carers, healthcare professionals and the community at large have been widely implemented across different regions and

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varying modalities. Furthermore, awareness promotion through stakeholders and the general public on issues relating to active and healthy ageing has engaged AA1 partners in significant activities, which included the organisation of conferences, seminars and workshops, publications of books and reports, campaigns on the web and media appearances.

Finally, formal “recognition systems” for distinguishing the contribution of older people in the social, economic and cultural life of their communities are far from being widely adopted at regional and local level.

3.4.2 Action Area 2 – Networks promoting an EU Covenant on Demographic Change

The objective of AA2 was to build and run a campaign for the launch of an EU Covenant on demographic change that will seek to create the necessary political and technical framework to bring together local and regional authorities – together with other stakeholders - across the EU. In preparation of that, the focus was particularly on finding smart and innovative evidence based solutions collected in an EU repository to support active and healthy ageing and develop age-friendly environments.

The proposed Covenant has received the support of the Committee of the Regions in their “Opinion on Active Ageing: Innovation, Smart Health and Better Lives” requested by the Danish EU Presidency and of a large network of stakeholders.

To meet the Action Area’s objectives, the following key collaborative actions have been undertaken:

• 2.1: adapting the WHO principles for age-friendly cities and communities to the EU context to address multi-layered governance, innovations in ICT, and new participatory approaches

• 2.2: drafting and running a questionnaire to scope the needs and interests of a possible EU Covenant and then to inform about the EU Covenant process and participation

• 2.3: designing and running a campaign to launch the proposed Covenant on demographic change

• 2.4: mapping existing European and international portals

• 2.5: promoting the formation of an online repository for good practices and evidence-based guidelines

• 2.6: building links to related policy areas

AA2 has mainly involved EU networks active in different fields such as public health, ageing issues, local policies, etc. It has also been very much supported by the WHO Regional Office for Europe. For almost all deliverables, most of the partners have been involved ensuring strong links between the different activities and deliverables. Over the time AGE Platform Europe, CEMR, Eurocities, EuroHealthNet, Alzheimer Europe and WHO-Europe have been joined by new partners such as the universities of Lisbon, Porto and Coïmbra, the Ministry of Health and Consumer Protection in Hamburg and Acceplan.

The first task of the AA2 has been to update the guidelines of the WHO guide on age-friendly cities and comunities and to define a set of principles that could be used as a basis for the proposed Covenant. A second set of action was to prepare and disseminate a questionnaire targeting local and regional


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authorities in order to better understand their needs and priorities regarding ageing issues and a potential Covenant on demographic change at EU level. The collection and analysis of answers has also been part of that action. The third action was devoted to the political campaign to raise awareness and gather political support for a Covenant on demographic change. This has been perfomed through different meetings, events as well as the management of a virtual network. The fourth and fifth action were very much linked and focused on notable practices: gathering and sharing of existing knowledge, making sure exchange of good practices would be supported by a repository dedicated to age-friendly environments. Then the following action has developed a mapping of EU initiatives linked to the work of the D4 Action Group in order to better identify synergies and make the best use of on-going initiatives. Last but not least work has been developed on indicators, mainly with a link to the Active Ageing Index work and the wish of the Provincial Government of Biscay to develop suitable methodologies and indicators for the local level.

3.4.3 Action Area 3 – Spatial Context

The objective of AA3 was to bring together regional research centres and programmes to undertake parallel research programmes into the links between spatial context, cost effectiveness, population health, participation and wellbeing of older people, from which evidence-based guidelines and best-practices could be developed and shared. The main challenge in creating age-friendly environments is to develop

multidisciplinary, integrated approaches to the design and development of “Smart Cities”. Members of this Action Area have considered that these should be adaptive, inclusive, and supportive living environments for all citizens, including a growing number of seniors.

To meet this objective, the following activities have been undertaken: initial research, analysis and database review to establish base-lines; urban design studies in regions and cities to bring forward guidelines and practices; housing studies in regions and cities to bring forward guidelines and practices; health and social service impact studies to bring forward guidelines and practices; the development of models and tool-kits to aid replicability; knowledge sharing through dissemination and awareness.

The following key collaborative actions have been undertaken:

• 3.1: researching and analysing databases in order to establish baselines for development

• 3.2: experiments and modelling for urban design, housing and health & social services

• 3.3: advocating and building awareness

• 3.4: disseminating results in relation to: urban design, housing and health & social services

• 3.5: developing evidence-based guidelines and standards such as: design for dementia in hospitals, tourism and leisure and housing standards for older people

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3.4.4 Action Area 4 – ICT and Smart Environments

The objective of Action Area 4 was to bring together stakeholders to undertake joint initiatives that increase the effectiveness of innovative solutions based on ICT products, applications and services in order to promote age-friendly environments. The ICT developments will bring forward ethical evidence-based guidelines, best-practices and standards which will be shared throughout the expanding network.

To meet this objective, the following six tasks have been undertaken:

• 4.1. analysing the state of the art, reviewing best practices and lessons learnt, detecting gaps and identifying end-users needs

• 4.2. defining guidelines and interoperability standards

• 4.3. promoting and undertaking knowledge sharing

• 4.4. designing tools and services, integrating and adapting existing solutions, developing new/ innovative solutions

• 4.5. providing training and skills development

• 4.6. evaluating, testing and piloting new/adapted solutions

The first task of the Action Area 4 was to analyse the state of the art reviewing best practices and lessons learnt, detecting gaps and identifying users’ needs. A relevant

number of partners have reported concluded activities under this task in Belgium, Finland, Italy, Spain and the UK. The activities ranged from literature review on the topics, to contacts establishment with experts to collect all relevant information in this field, and awareness raising to explain the ways in which ICTs can be used to support health and wellbeing. Moreover, inside this task, the coordinators of the AA collaborated in the definition of the template to gather information that was later included in the D4 booklet with good practices. Furthermore, partners were encouraged to include their good practices in the AFE-INNOVNET repository in order to share their experiences and foster their transferability and scaling up.

The second task of the AA was focused on defining guidelines and intereoperability standards. The reported activities, some still in progress, are adressed to offer easy-to-use technology in different spheres (health, housing, tourism, etc.) and to promote healthy habits among elderly people using technology. The third task was aimed to promote and undertake knowledge sharing. Under this task, partners have organised workshops, participated in different conferences and congresses, attended different meetings, and developed dissemination materials. All these activities have been reported to the AA coordinators regularly and to the Commission twice a year.

The next task had the purpose to design tools and services, integrate and adapt existing solutions, and develop new/innovative solutions. In this sense, partners have elaborated a deliverable with the contributions of partners involved in this task categorised according to the keywords provided and used to highlight the trends concerning ICT and smart environment


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applications. The fifth task aimed to improve the training and skills development for students, professionals and end-users. In this framework, study visits have been organised, new knowledge has been incorporated to the courses developed by partners integrating the concept of Active and Health Ageing and the use of ICTs, design for all, and assistive technology, among others. Finally, the sixth task, adressed to evaluate, test and pilot new/adapted solutions, is still in

progress. Under this task, partners are piloting and evaluating solutions related to Ambient Assisted Living.

Complementary to the activities described above, partners have developed monitoring and dissemination actions in order to involve all relevant stakeholders in the AA and establish synergies with other Action Groups and the thematic working groups (dementia, age-friendly tourism and urban design).

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4. Activities & Achievements

4.1 General Results

Results achieved by the individual commitments can be grouped in research outputs, tangible products and dissemination activities. Common projects carried our at local and regional level for leveraging the creation of an age-friendly environment represent the highest rate of success: these include, for instance, multi-sectoral stakeholder alliances for testing and experimentation of new services, processes and products by end-users; cooperation between research organisations, local governments and businesses for the promotion of senior tourism; older people fora promoted in the communities; development of cities networks to promote evidence-based healthy ageing oriented actions; set up of regional networks in research and innovation to find solutions to improve the quality of life and promote a healthy and active ageing of the population.

A significant effort has been made by partners to disseminate the message of the EIP on AHA and of the individual commitments through meetings, events and conferences which have covered dissemination and awareness creation strands. These activities also entailed the set up and maintenance of web sites, platforms and online tools for the collection and distribution of information; sharing experiences of social care services; raising general awareness on the subject of age-friendly environments; promoting discussion forum for patients and carers to generate engagement mechanisms.

Advocacy programmes have addressed the importance to ensure that the voice of older people is captured and reflected in concrete policy initiatives and plans and translated in supportive actions. Most of the

commitments triggered in this area dealt with the provision of support to specific patients groups - and carers – such as people with dementia and Alzheimer and the promotion of healthy life-style, physical activity and self-management through community based activity programmes.

Research activities have produced a set of tools, studies, data collections and reports which provide evidence and sources for designing policy interventions and orientations for action in the whole spectrum of subjects targeting the age-friendly environment. These activities encompass studies assessment on spatial context, urban design and housing; analysis of the state of art of ICT and smart environments including how digital technology can be used to support health and wellbeing; development of quality and innovative criteria useful to asses workplace health promotion programmes; analysis of social and accessible tourism.

Regulatory frameworks, policy strategies, plans, recommendations and guidelines for increasing the participation of older people in the community life have been produced at national, regional and local level through the involvement of municipality councils, trade unions, local healthcare agencies, patients advocacy groups, business and technology providers.

Finally, educational and training programmes have been designed and implemented both for patients, informal carers and professionals to increase the engagement towards themes such as active participation, chronic and long term diseases, social care, human-computer intraction, health promotion and healthy life-style.

Figure 3 provides a summary of the results achieved by the individual commitments.


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Figure 3. Results achieved by individual commitments

4.2 Achievements

4.2.1 Individual Commitments

This section offers an in depth focus on the major achievements in terms of impacts reached by some of the individual commitments in each action area.

In AA1 a number of mechanisms to engage with the voice of older persons have been implemented at local and regional level. In the Basque Countries, the collaboration between the University of Deusto and the Biscay’s Council of Seniors has allowed to launch a programme to establish recommendations to the Council and the Provincial Government for the promotion and implementation of age-friendly strategies in the municipalities of Biscay. Different lines of work have been defined for the period 2013-2015 in order to encourage and enhance the participation of elders in public and social life also stimulating an active and healthy ageing, a positive image of seniors and their empowerment.

Initiated by the local Ministry of Health and Consumer Protection, the Hamburg 2030 project has the goal to share practices regarding the involvement of advocacy

organisations and the participation of the elderly in the city strategy development. The ultimate scope is the establishment of a law on the participation of older people in the public and social life of the town giving them specific rights – e.g. right to information, to raise their voice and to be heard (Hamburgisches Seniorenmitwirkungsgesetz). The law for participation of senior citizens has entered into force. The Advisory bodies formed by elderly citizens have been constituted and started their work. First experiences are gathered in view of the evaluation of the law planned for 2017.

In Ireland, Older People’s Fora on Age-Friendly Alliances have been set up in six counties (Louth, Monaghan, Meath, Fingal, Cavan and Leitrim) by the Age-Friendly Regional Alliances in the North East Louth County Council and the Netwell Centre, in association with the Regional Manager of Ireland’s Age-Friendly Cities and Counties Programme also provide virtual and actual support to the counties in the establishment and continued maintenance of the Fora.

Built upon the networks from the Swedish government programs “Growing Older – Living Well” - around 50 municipalities involved - and “Technology for Elderly”, the Swedish Institute of Assistive Technology (SIAT)

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is encouraging the establishment of a network of municipalities interested in housing, assistive technology and environment issues related to older persons.

As part of the regional Strategies for Active Ageing, around 900 Centres for the Active Participation of older people have been settled in Andalusia – 167 of them are publicly owned – with the aim of promoting specific activities including learning activities, health promotion practices, safety and protection, training in new technologies. More than 600.000 users benefit of these centres with about 75.000 older individuals involved in physical activity workshops and campaigns.

In Italy, the Healthcare Regional Agency of Regione Marche in cooperation with the Ministry of Health has established the “Italia Longeva” network, an integrated project for active longevity to reinforce the centrality of older people in government in order to meet their growing needs. In the same region, an agreement has been settled making the participation of older people trade unions permanent and active. They will contribute to the decision making in different sectors in regards to health, social, employment, transport, agriculture, etc. Members of the Older People Trade Unions at regional level amount to 217.295 individuals.

Advocacy campaigns have been deployed with the scope to raise awareness and support interventions towards specific groups of patients including people with dementia and Alzheimer and chronic patients.

The Health and Social Care Alliance in Scotland promotes advocacy projects where carers and patients’ experiences and personal stories are captured and shared: up to now these campaigns have generated 1.300 pledges providing key messages to the dementia communities.

In Regione Lombardia the “Walking Groups” project aims at engaging chronic patients and advocacy groups to healthy life-style

through physical activity: 424 municipalities take part in the project with around 18.891 citizens involved, more than 11.488 of which are 65 years or older.

The Carebus project in Andalusia ensured the training of more than 25.000 carers in 286 regional municipalities in subjects related to management diseases related to ageing conditions.

The different projects and initiatives jointly carried out by the Kinsale Community Response to Dementia and the University College Cork have been deployed through collaborative learning, planning and actions by patients, families, communities and the Primary Care teams covering needs of people with dementia that in Ireland sum up to 41.700 individuals. These experiences have contributed to design and launch the first “The Kinsale Age-Friendly Town Plan” in Cork County (October 2015).

In AA2 around 12 partners have been involved actively from the start and across the last three years. In addition to them, 328 partners have joined forces through the AFE-INNOVNET Thematic Network. All the perspectives are represented: local and regional authorities, civil society organisations, research centres and universities, industries and service providers. A first significant result has been achieved in the identification of the needs and priorities of local and regional authorities: a survey has been designed by AGE Platform Europe, CEMR (Council of European Municipalities and Regions) and Eurocities. It has been conducted via an online questionnaire available in five languages (EN, FR, DE, IT and ES) and circulated broadly from October 2012 to January 2013. 255 respondents from the following entities (self-identified) replied to the questionnaire: 81 cities, 47 regions, 31 towns, 96 from other types of organisations (NGOs, associations, universities, etc.) The survey helped to identify the priorities as well as the challenges faced by cities and regions when it comes to implementing age-friendly


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environments (lack of funding, coordination among levels of government and political commitment). This work has helped to inform the political campaign and to better frame the proposed Covenant on demographic change.

Based on the virtual network on age-friendly environments started thanks to the action area 2 and formalised with the AFE-INNOVNET Thematic Network, a critical mass of stakeholders has been gathered to support the launch of the Covenant on Demographic Change (December 2015). The Covenant will have its own legal entity and its processes will be aligned on the WHO global network of age-friendly cities and communities. In order to make the best use of existing initiatives, synergies have also been built with the Dublin Declaration on age-friendly cities and communities in Europe (2013).

A relevant effort carried out in this action area has been devoted to map good practices and relevant portals. EuroHealthNet has revitalised its website dedicated to Healthy Ageing, which gathers links, key ressources and examples of good practices that can support the concrete development and implementation of healthy ageing initiatives.

The University of Lisbon has developed an on-line platform and a repository of good practices to support “CIT-A-PE”, a Community of Practice (CoP) of organisations and individuals with an interest in the influence of physical environment on health and well-being, and notably in promoting walkable age-friendly cities in Portugal using participatory processes.

The Thematic Network “AFE-INNOVNET” has developped a repository of good practices across the eight domains of the WHO guide on age-friendly cities (transportation, housing, social participation, respect and social inclusion, civic participation and employment, communication and information, community support and health services, outdoor spaces and buildings). The website of the Thematic

Network also contains a library with key ressources at international, national or regional/local levels in relation to age-friendly environments, as well as links to EU funded projects related to the topic.

In AA3 research, studies and analysis have laid down relevant basis for launching regional and local plans addressing the spatial contex improvement. In a major development, four organisations in the Municipality of Groningen have joined forces in the Groningen Agreement to start the “Healthy Cities” project, shaping research and experiments activities on urban spaces, architecture and housing.

In Belgium, the Living Lab Care Flanders has officially kickstarted in 2013 with a duration of 3 years supported by the Flemish government. Its goal is to search for new and innovative solutions to tackle challenges in elderly care such as increasing demand for care, shortness of care personnel and limited budgets. In this framework, 5 platforms have been launched, that are testing and expertimenting new concepts, services, processes and products giving a central role to the end-user. Platforms have been initiated with an investment of 1 million euro covering the territories of Turnhout, Aalst, Leuven, Limburg and Brussels-Antwerp with the deployment of 22 projects, which received the label of “taking smarter care for tomorrow”.

In AA 4, members from different disciplines and backgrounds contributed to the implementation of several initiatives. Those members are SMEs, public authorities, research institutes, educational entities and associations, among others, working in the field of ICT and active and healthy ageing. In concrete, they promote the use and improvement of ICT products, applications and services in order to enhance the quality of life of older people in all their life settings.

Polibienestar, the Research Institute on Social Walfare Policy of the University of Valencia, launched in December 2012

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the SOCIALTOURISM platform, an online platform that allows all tourism entities to self-evaluate their accessibility conditions, know the elements to change and the correct way to become accessible following a universal design and considering different kinds of disability. This platform considers the accessibility of ICT devices. Moreover, in the download area of the SOCIALTOURISM platform (www.socialtourismplatform.com) there are some guidelines to build age-friendly ICTs for the tourism sector.

In the same area, ISOIN (Ingeniería y Soluciones Informáticas) is developing real-time tourism routes based on real-time means of transport information, seniors’ contacts network and emotions. The idea is to provide elderly with a personalised context-based multimodal and multinational social journey-planning tool with affective capabilities and an easy to follow adaptive real time guidance making use of artificial reasoning based on an information manager (filtering and combining). Vienna, Zaragoza, Paris and Oslo are cities where these services are tested.

In Friuli Venezia Giulia Region (Italy) the “FVG as @ lab” was established. It consists of actors working in the field of technology for living environments and represents a regional network that operates in research and innovation to find solutions to improve the quality of life and promote a healthy and active aging of the population.

4.2.2 Collaborative Work

Collaborative works undertaken in Action Group D4 have been jointly carried out in AAs 2 and 4.

It should be underlined that AA 2 has been very much supported by two projects which have contributed a lot to achieve the results and even to go above the plan as set up at the start. The first project is a technical

proposal led by WHO-Europe with the support of the European Commission (DG EMPL) in order to adapt the WHO guidelines on age-friendly cities to the EU context: the work is still on-going and the results should be presented by end 2015. Key partners of the D4 Action Group have actually been associated to that work.

In parallel, thanks to a CIP ICT PSP call, the Thematic Network AFE-INNOVNET (Innovation for age-friendly environments) has been able to take over some activities building on the results of the survey conducted with local and regional authorities and the mapping of synergies. Indeed the virtual network of interested stakeholders has thus received a strong support with the development of a platform to allow for communication among the members thanks to a smart directory. Activities such as workshops and webinars have been made feasible to support exchange of good practices and further recruit partners. An on-line repository has been established and different methodological tools at the cross-roads of the four action areas of the D4 Action Group have been developed.

The two projects have been strong incentives and have allowed involving additional stakeholders above AA 2 and even above the whole D4 Action Group.

In AA 4, implemented activities and gained achievements cover a wide range of categories including: the detection of gaps; the identification of users’ needs; the definition of suitable technologies; training on this field; the establishment of recommendations and guidelines; the development of awareness raising and dissemination activities; reports, and articles. A significant effort has been made trying to involve SMEs, academia and public authorities to work together in the Action Area.

Figure 4 summarises the results achieved with collaborative works.


November 2015

4.2.3 Key messages and lessons learned

After three years activity some key messages and lessons can be highlighted and brought forward for the continuation of the D4 Action Group in a renovated spirit and framework of intervention:

• A successful implementation of policies and practices for age-friendly environments relies on robust and shared medium and long term strategies adopted by regional/local governments involving all the stakeholders, including older people and patients (representatives or carers);

• Those strategies should be established in the light of evidence of efficacy and effectiveness and monitored along their implementation in order to verify their impact and, ultimately, refine their scope;

• An effective partnership of committed stakeholders with opportunities to meet, exchange good practices and work together has been a rewarding experience;

• The need to involve all levels of governance to develop and implement comprehensive strategies on age-friendly environments/active and healthy ageing has been made very clear all along this work: the coordination of the European,

national, regional and local level is key to deliver for citizens;

• It has emerged as a key requirement to mainstream ageing issues through different policies as well as to establish clear synergies between different initiatives, for example with the European Innovation Partnership on Smart Cities and Communities, to avoid the silos effect.

• Implemented policies and practices should always be linked to a target of users/population (people with dementia, chronic patients, marginalised and disabled persons) or a devoted to a specific purpose (patient empowerment, advocacy, increased participation, physical activity, tourism, housing…).

• Effective working in topical groups (dementia, tourism, and architecture, housing and urban design) and creating synergies with existing projects as the AFE-INNOVNET project gives added value to initiatives.

• Awareness raising campaign, dissemination activities and training can usefully accompany and support the implementation of the strategy for the implementation of programmes promoting age-friendly environments: these should be based on traditional methods of communication and – more and more - reinforced by web or ICT tools.

Figure 4. Results achieved by collaborative works

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5. Conclusions and Future Activities

Implementation of age-friendly policies at local and regional lavel, the launch of a Covenant on demographic change, issues related to the spatial context and ICT solutions and services for promoting age-friendly environements: these four topics have been central to the strategies of the EIP on AHA D4 Action group. Their importance has been confirmed by the relevant number of individual commitments which have been shared and carried out by members. Furthermore, collaborative works have been initiated whitin the group: these have pointed out to what extend the joint collaboration amongst local and regional public authorities and private organisations can contribute to create new opportunities of growth, innovation and social development.

Based on lessons learnt and achievements gained during the period 2012-2015, the D4 Action Group members have expressed

the willingness to continue working together to find new fields of collaboration on age-friendly environments both in terms of quality of life improvement and boosting responsible research.

The occasion given by the renovation of the Action Plan driving the strategies of the D4 for the period 2016-2018 represents the chance to identify areas of interventions, the possibility to scale up, transfer good practices avoiding duplication of works and to advance the Action Group governance.

Innovative employment policies and the silver economy; technologies and social networks, innovation, accessibility and universal design; age-friendly tourism and its impact as well as inclusive Smart Cities are some of the themes that the Action Group membres have identified to re-launch commitments towards age-friendly environments.


November 2015

6. Annex

In AA1 seven deliverables were expected to be achieved. They have been grouped and delivered in a unique document updated twice along the EIP on AHA timeframe in November 2014 and June 2015, State of the Art of Action Area 1 including Deliverables:

• D.1.1 Mechanisms to connect voice of older people in place;

• D.1.2 Local stakeholders platforms in place;

• D.1.3 Populated database/repository of good practices and strategies;

• D.1.4 Trans-national programmes/projects;

• D.1.5 Increased participation;

• D.1.6 Public awareness campaign and

• D.1.7 Recognition system.

AA2 planned seven deliverables of which six reported or still in progress:

• D2.1 A set of principles and guidelines adapted to the EU context that will be used as a basis for the proposed Covenant (network of age-friendly regions and cities);

• D2.2 Through the questionnaire LRAs will identify their needs and priority areas for a EU initiative on active ageing such as a Covenant, and gather new

commitments from LRAs to promote age-friendly environment;

• D2.3 Reduced fragmentation and increased coordination amongst stakeholders;

• D2.4 A comprehensive list of existing portals that contribute to knowledge-sharing and building synergies;

• D2.5 To build consensus, and to identify the most appropriate organisation/location to host the repository and

• D2.6 Established synergies with policy processes such as: other EIP-AHA Action Groups, Europe 2020, Knowledge Innovation Community, CIP-PSP, Horizon 2020, Digital Agenda, The Accessibility Act etc.

AA3 has produced all five planned deliverables:

• D3.1 Reports, articles;

• D3.2 Reports, articles, modelling tools, scenarios;

• D3.3 Extent the number of stakeholders (potential SME’s) and networks;

• D3.4 Results, self-help, policy advices, websites, conferences and

• D3.5 Evidence-based guidelines,

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A total of ten deliverables were expected to be achieved in AA4, three of them have been delivered:

• D4.1.1 State of the Art of ICT for Age-friendly environments;

• D4.3 Events, reported in the continue monitoring of the group, and

• D4.4 Inventory of developed solutions

Five are still in progress:

• D4.2.1 Universal criteria for age-friendly ICTs devices and systems;

• D4.2.2 A process model to analyse financial andsocial risks of ICT solutions;

• D4.4.2 Integration solutions and new tools;

• D4.5 Report on training and skills development for the inclusion of ICT in Age-friendly environments and

• D4.6 Evaluation plans and framework, and results consolidation

One deliverable has been cancelled and no information has been provided by the remaining one.

Deliverables supported by reports are available on the EIP on AHA D4 Yammer group.

HOW TO OBTAIN EU PUBLICATIONS

Free publications:

• one copy: via EU Bookshop (http://bookshop.europa.eu);

• more than one copy or posters/maps:

- from the European Union’s representations (http://ec.europa.eu/represent_en.htm);

- from the delegations in non-EU countries (http://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/index_en.htm);

- by contacting the Europe Direct service (http://europa.eu/europedirect/index_en.htm) or calling 00 800 6 7 8 9 10 11 (freephone number from anywhere in the EU) (*).

(*) The information given is free, as are most calls (though some operators, phone boxes or hotels may charge you).

Priced publications:

• via EU Bookshop (http://bookshop.europa.eu)

ISBN 978-92-79-52726-5

doi:10.2875/121652

EW-01-15-834-EN

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STATE OF PLAY OF ACTION GROUP D4

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Transcript of STATE OF PLAY OF ACTION GROUP D4