The ITHACA project worked one year on developing a tailored self-assessment tool, which will enable regional stakeholders to identify their strengths and weaknesses across the innovation cycle from invention to scaling up for Smart Health and Care.
ITHACA´s self-assessment tool is an online survey that has collected information from stakeholders in all the nine partner regions. The results of the survey are currently being validated by the regional stakeholders and will be analysed in further detail. The findings and learnings from the self-assessment tool will be input for the ITHACA co-design event which will take place on the 5th of June in Krakow. ITHACA is then halfway and results of the first 18 months will be shared during this event. Results of the survey will also be revealed on the 11th World Conference of Gerontechnology in Florida, USA on 7-11 may 2018.
The aim of the self-assessment tool is to develop a baseline profile for each of the nine partner regions, which will be a point of departure to identify how each region can improve within their innovation cycle from invention to scaling up for Smart Health and Care.
The University of Ljubljana has played an important role in coordinating the content of the self-assessment tool from the beginning until the end of the process. The preparation has taken one year, and has been going through eight development phases (see figure 1).
During the 1st Semester the University of Ljubljana made the first draft of the tool. During the 2nd Semester further comments and suggestions were collected from the partners and incorporated, followed by further validations and inspections to avoid any inconsistencies in the contents. Much attention was also paid to the terms used in the survey (e.g. innovation, Smart Health and Care, ecosystem, triple/quadruple helix etc.), and to avoid any misunderstandings of those terms. Therefore, the University of Ljubljana and the NHS Liverpool supplemented the survey with clear and concise definitions of those terms.
The survey was finally translated and sent out with survey invitations and reminders. The self-assessment tool was launched in December 2017. The ITHACA project is proud to announce that the result of the online survey reached a total of 544 responses from ITHACA´s nine partner regions.
We are looking forward to keeping you updated with the results of the survey on our website.
