Cooperation and training on innovation and entrepreneurship in the eHealth community Erasmus Project

Project Title

Cooperation and training on innovation and entrepreneurship in the eHealth community

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Overcoming skills mismatches (basic/transversal); ICT – new technologies – digital competences; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

CONTEXT
Our project focuses on the national priority of “Tackling skills gaps and mismatches” through delivering an education program, which engages students from across European countries to enable continuous innovation and entrepreneurship in the European eHealth sector. The main focus of the CONNECT project is on issues of eHealth innovation, state-of-the-art training and education of students necessary on the health market, in the form of a highly-and-systematically organized formal and non-formal educational program to improve knowledge, develop cross-sectoral skills and competences, entrepreneurship and support students’ critical thinking required to improve health care.

OBJECTIVES
Objective 1: Develop an innovative multidisciplinary and cross-sectional curriculum for students from the computer and information, health and social sciences background, with the main focus on cooperation between sectors for improving the existing knowledge, skills, and entrepreneurship, in the first ten months of the project, by an international team of eHealth informal and formal educational providers within partner institutions.

Objective 2: Provide one Intensive Study Programme (ISP) to 42 students from the computer and information, healthcare and social sciences background in mixed working groups in Cluj-Napoca, Romania in September 2022 in order to facilitate student’s challenge-based learning collaborations by having students develop eHealth applications in the form of a project with real implication in the field of eHealth.

Objective 3: Develop a transnational network of key actors from academia, industry, and NGOs to establish collaborations, exchange best practices and facilitate long-distance mentorship for students who graduated the Intensive Study Programme through an online platform “eHealth Community of Practice” by the end of the project.

PARTICIPANTS
The participants involved in the project can be divided into the following categories, depending on their level of involvement:
Direct staff of the project- the management team and the steering committee (at least two members from each partner)
Intensive Study Program Participants (ISP)- Students and Teaching staff (42 students from Health sciences educational programs (Public health, Medical, Nursing, Nutrition, Sociology, or Psychology) or IT educational programs (Computer engineering or Informatics) and more than five teaching staff and mentors
Consultants – entrepreneurs, industry contacts, and staff active in education and training that are going to be involved in the development of the activities and outputs of the project
Indirect participants: persons that will participate in our multiplier and dissemination events from academia, healthcare, industry and other related sectors

Approach methodology and project activities
We structured the activities related to the objectives of the CONNECT Project in 6 Work Packages (WPs) with specific plans of action supervised by a WP leader from each partner, as follows:
WP1 – Development and evaluation of the Curriculum (coordinator Babes-Bolyai University)
WP2 – Design and web development of the eHealth Community of Practice (coordinator European Initiative for Education)
WP3 – Training and long-term mentorship of the project through Intensive Study Programme (ISP) (coordinator INIT association)
WP4 – Dissemination Work Package (coordinators INIT association and University of Porto)
WP5 – Evaluation and Innovation Work Package (coordinator University of Porto)
WP6 – Management Work Package (coordinator Babes-Bolyai University)

LONG-TERM POTENTIAL BENEFITS
The sustainability of the project will be ensured firstly by integrating the open-source Curriculum that will be developed by the partners into the course of eHealth at the Department of Public Health, from BBU, as part of their educational program at the Bachelor and Masters level. Therefore, one of the intellectual outputs of the project will be transferred to them and other interested higher education institutions in order to create a long-term use for our product.

The ISP, with the use of new pedagogies, formal and non-formal methods and challenged-based teaching and training offered by our partners, will create the perfect enhancement for the students to be creative, innovative and collaborative and develop digital healthcare prototypes that are feasible to be implemented in the real-life environment in eHealth.

The “eHealth Community of Practice” online platform will be available for at least three years after the project completion period constituting a transnational network of members from academia, industry, and healthcare and as a mentorship platform for future health innovators.

Another activity that will ensure the continuity of the project will be the “Connect the eHealth Innovation Ecosystems” Conference, which will be organized every two years to increase further and sustain our eHealth network.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 233166 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITATEA BABES BOLYAI & Country: RO

Project Partners

• Europäische Bildungsinitiative
• ASOCIATIA INIT
• UNIVERSIDADE DO PORTO