Connected Hubs in Ageing: Healthy Living to Protect Cerebrovascular Function

Project Information

CHAngeing

Grant agreement ID: 101087071

DOI

10.3030/101087071

EC signature date 10 November 2022

Start date 1 January 2023

End date 31 December 2026

Funded under

• Widening participation and spreading excellence

Total cost

€ 4 999 693,75

EU contribution

€ 4 999 693,75

Coordinated by

UNIVERSIDADE DE COIMBRA
Portugal

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CHAngeing (Connected Hubs in Ageing: Healthy Living to Protect Cerebrovascular Function)

Reporting period: 2023-01-01 to 2024-03-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

CHAngeing’s objectives are listed as follows:
Objective 1 - To implement intra and inter Excellence Hubs strategic, coordination and operational capacity, reinforcing attractiveness and socio-economic impact of ecosystems in widening regions;
Objective 2 - To create the operational framework with a high-quality action and investment plan, ensuring project implementation efficiency and long-term sustainability by nurturing investment and access to private capital, national, regional and European funds, synergistically;
Objective 3 - To develop a joint scientific strategy to deliver science based innovation supporting the implementation of R&I pilot projects in line with regional and national R&I strategies, including RIS3 on health and ageing and Europen priorities on Green Deal and Digitial Transition;
Objective 4 - To leverage excellence in ageing-related research and innovation to transform both excellence hubs in poles of attraction of new talents and retain talents in both regions (avoiding brain drain, supporting brain gain, delivering brain circulation);
Objective 5 - To offer excellent and innovative educational programs to train researchers (including master's, PhD, and postdoctoral researchers), entrepreneurs and professionals, in international and cross-sector settings, providing new competencies in intensive ageing R&I domains. This will accelerate knowledge transfer and entrepreneurial skills in ageing-related areas by providing intellectual stimulating environments and entrepreuneurial culture in student's training;
Objective 6 - To create synergies and reinforce links between science and business, delivering new training opportunities, twinning projects and business development. This will facilitate market uptake of innovative technologies to support healthy living , cerebrovascular fitness and stroke rehabilitation practices, contributing to leverage new business opportunities for companies (specially SMEs) and job creation;
Objective 7 - To co-create a toolkit and a pilot, to be implemented in Center Region of Portugal and Crete, designed to assess lifestyles and provide health literacy, empowering the citizens to adopt healthy habits based on the Mediterranean diet culture, in order to prevent CVD;
Objective 8 - To build a coherent pipeline of stakeholders and innovative technology-assisted good practices in a demonstrator for efficent interventions to support post-stroke rehabilitation of cognitive and motor coordination capacities;
Objective 9 - To maximize outreach of CHAngeing excellence hubs focusing on new talents, citizen engagement, funding agencies and business, policymakers, and other relevant stakeholders.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

WP1- During the first period of CHAngeing implementation we have created the framework to reinforce intra and inter-hubs coordination and operational capacity. This has been achieved essentially through coordination activities, under WP1, resulting in collaborative work between different groups and partners, including regular (every two months) meetings of CHAngeing Management Team, online Consortium Meetings, Kick Off Meeting, site visits, organization of conferences and regional conferences, among others.
WP2- Mainly related to WP2. Deliverable 2.1. sets the framework for the action and investment plan, ensuring proper planning of project activities and defining strategies to raise additional funds to implement WP6 pilot and demonstrator. Significant attraction of EU and national/regional funds to support other projects that create synergies with CHAngeing Excellence Hubs.
WP3- Collaborative work developed by CHAngeing partners resulted in refining the scientific scope of the project, WP3, with a focus on biomolecules present in Mediterranean diet food (including antioxidants, anti-inflammatory and with caloric restriction mimetic properties) to prevent the onset/development of pathological ageing (and ageing-related diseases). Some of the collaborative projects involve PhD students from the University of Coimbra and University of Crete (WP4). CHAngeing activities help to consolidate research and innovation excellence in both hubs (Coimbra and Heraklion regions), retaining and attracting new talents (WP3 and WP4). Even considering that main RP1 activities intend to create the basis for a solid scientific outcome to be delivered in RP2 & RP3, the CHAngeing consortium has published 3 high-relevant papers in RP1: Nature Communications; EMBO Journal; Frontiers in Immunology.
WP4- CHAngeing partners offered PhD courses to a collaborative PhD network on ageing (funded by EIT Health; EIT Health Ageing PhD School), involved PhD students in collaborative courses and implemented innovation and entrepreneurship training activities targeting Master’s and PhD students, postdoctoral researchers as well as innovators and entrepreneurs
WP5- CHAngeing partners developed a literature review, WP5, deliverable 5.1. highlighting innovative technologies in stroke patient rehabilitation and raised interviews with SME’s and start-up managers to identify success stories and barriers to technology uptake in health sector.
WP6- CHAngeing partners launched a focus group to revisit the Healthy Lifestyle Assessment Toolkit previously implemented by Coimbra regions partners (under EIT Health project funding, 2018 & 2019), also incorporating key features suggested by Heraklion regions partners. The new version of the Healthy Lifestyles Assessment Toolkit has been adapted to the Mediterranean Diet culture, including the social network Lubben Scale and the Mediterranean Diet Adherence Screener (MEDAS).
WP7- CHAngeing consortium implemented a significant number of communication and dissemination activities, including: 1- communication materials, including logos and templates; 2- web site and social networks; 3- project kick off meeting in Coimbra; 4- Site visit of Coimbra partners to Crete; 5- Participation of Prof. Nektarios Tavernarakis in seminars/conferences in Coimbra; 6- Participation of FORTH partners in advanced PhD courses in Coimbra; 7- Organization of regional quadruple helix-based networks meetings in Coimbra and in Crete; 8) Publication of scientific papers; 9) Participation in scientific conferences; 10) Participation of Coimbra and Heraklion partners in advocacy / policy making meetings; among others.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The CHAngeing project could implement some high-impact activities, delivering KPI's in line with the expected outcomes. KPI's related with funding synergies have been highly successful. Moreover, in spite of the fact that the deliverable for the common scientific strategy is expected for RP2, partners already published high-impact publications (eg. Nature communication; EMBO J; Frontiers Immunology). High-impact science into-society activities have been implemented.

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