On the 20th of May 2020, the Pilot Action proposed by the Metropolitan City of Turin and Fomento San Sebastiàn – E-Health Territorial LAB: local ecosystem as an instrument to scale up innovative local start-ups in e-health topic –has been approved by the Interreg Europe Secretariat. The sharing of best practices within the ecoRIS3 project triggered special linkages, shared projects and activities between partners and provided the opportunity for Metropolitan City of Turin and Fomento San Sebastiàn to elaborate the pilot action proposal with the aim of replicating Biodonostia’s good practice in the territory of Metropolitan City of Turin.
The pilot has been designed with the purpose of promoting a shared reflection on the possible promotion of e-health for the local development and well-being: digital technologies are bringing the opportunity to completely innovate the entire healthcare sector. Biodonostia’s expertise in the field will be crucial in order to ignite the set-up of e-health LAB involving all the four-helix components. The pilot action has the added value to demonstrate the engagement of the local stakeholders (as services providers, hospitals, associations, incubators that already work in the metropolitan area as representative subjects for the innovative start-ups) and the connection of the territorial ecosystem as the key to generate impact. In our case, the pilot action will test a methodology letting the innovative start-ups (some of them funded by ecoRIS3 Policy Instrument) enter in touch with the local ecosystem playing a role of “test bed” for their innovations, acting also as “accelerators”. The main beneficiaries of the pilot action results will be in first stance the end users (e.g. the citizens), the e-health services providers (both private & public sector), the hospitals in the district, the innovative start-ups in health and ICT sector. The pilot then is expected to pave the way in order to create a receptive environment in which transfer in a near future the BIODONOSTIA’s good practice and business model.
Moreover, the Metropolitan City of Turin will be also involved in the pilot action proposed by Vidzeme Planning Region (VPR) “Innovation manager support program – test before implement”, which has also received the approval at the end of May. In this instance, the Metropolitan City of Turin has been called to present and share with VPR its good practices. Namely, VPR is planning to test action “Innovation managers” and learning from good practice “2i3T - Business incubator and Technology transfer” from Italy and will require a detailed engagement with good practice owners. First of all, MCT and related good practices holders will be involved in online meetings and training sessions but also in an experience exchange and knowledge transfer visit from Latvia to Turin.
To conclude, the pilot actions clearly represent the value of a tight interregional cooperation which provides the source for experiences exchanges, the access to new knowledge and finally relies on getting inspiration from one another among partners.
