Periodic Reporting for period 1 - EVOLVE2CARE (Engaging the Value Of Living Labs to Innovate Care And Regulatory Environments)
Reporting period: 2024-10-01 to 2025-09-30
Charting a course for a more resilient and patient-centric healthcare future depends on continuous development and delivery of innovation to the market. EVOLVE2CARE focuses on HealthTech experimentation practice frameworks, standardizing and enhancing the symbiotic relationship between living labs and innovators in the context of the Transitional Care sector. Challenges ranging from an aging population to complexity of medical conditions and regulatory frameworks, bring a growing recognition of the importance of experimentation practices. By subjecting innovations to real-world scenarios, experimentation uncovers complexities, ethical considerations, interoperability challenges, and unforeseen barriers that controlled environments may not reveal. By harnessing the power of Living Labs – real-world environments involving users and stakeholders – EVOLVE2CARE will provide innovators with access to services for testing/validating research and products. EVOLVE2CARE focuses on three Use Cases (Hospital Discharge Management, Homecare Monitoring Solutions, Aging Population & Care Transitions), engaging stakeholders from across the value chain to examine complexities, barriers and enablers that regulatory frameworks pose to the development and commercialization of healthcare innovations. Recognizing the cross-disciplinary nature of healthcare, we will engage with EIT KICs and their beneficiaries. We will provide a scalable, collaborative experimentation space (the AccelUP marketplace), to aggregate Living Labs, innovators, researchers, regulators, investors, and other pertinent stakeholders. Trainings workshops, and reports will increase knowledge and disseminate findings to our stakeholders. The project partners encompass vast expertise and networks covering the development/commercialization of innovation in transitional care. The project advisory board consists of C-Level Experts in Healthcare/Pharma, Living Labs, Startups, EIT programs and Regulatory issues.
During the first year of the project, the consortium successfully moved from the exploratory and design phase to the implementation phase, establishing a strong foundation for achieving the project’s objectives. Key activities included mapping the HealthTech innovation ecosystem in transitional care, identifying stakeholder needs, developing a KPI framework, and launching the Open Call process. Early work focused on analysing barriers and drivers to innovation through workshops, questionnaires, literature review, resulting in D1.1. These insights informed a structured KPI framework, validated through internal and external feedback, and delivered as D1.2. Two repositories were created to support use case evaluation, end user engagement, and impact assessment.
The consortium designed the experimentation environment and outlined collaboration and matchmaking processes in the EVOLVE2CARE Action Plan (D1.3). Preparations for the Open Calls included coordinating the full process, implementing targeted dissemination efforts, and evaluating the first two submitted applications, including ethical reviews and LL matchmaking.
Capacity building activities were also delivered. AV hosted training sessions on accelerating research impact, while ENoLL provided training for Living Labs on participating in experimentation. These materials will be publicly available through the ENoLL platform.
Cross cutting activities ensured strong communication, dissemination, and coordination. The project’s visual identity and communication channels were established, and materials were produced to promote the Open Calls. Management structures were strengthened through regular meetings, formalised internal procedures, establishment of advisory boards, and continuous interaction with the European Commission.
By the end of year one, seven deliverables had been submitted, nine of nineteen KPIs achieved, and all three milestones completed. The project concluded its foundational phase with validated frameworks, an active stakeholder network, and clear processes to guide the implementation and experimentation work ahead.
The consortium designed the experimentation environment and outlined collaboration and matchmaking processes in the EVOLVE2CARE Action Plan (D1.3). Preparations for the Open Calls included coordinating the full process, implementing targeted dissemination efforts, and evaluating the first two submitted applications, including ethical reviews and LL matchmaking.
Capacity building activities were also delivered. AV hosted training sessions on accelerating research impact, while ENoLL provided training for Living Labs on participating in experimentation. These materials will be publicly available through the ENoLL platform.
Cross cutting activities ensured strong communication, dissemination, and coordination. The project’s visual identity and communication channels were established, and materials were produced to promote the Open Calls. Management structures were strengthened through regular meetings, formalised internal procedures, establishment of advisory boards, and continuous interaction with the European Commission.
By the end of year one, seven deliverables had been submitted, nine of nineteen KPIs achieved, and all three milestones completed. The project concluded its foundational phase with validated frameworks, an active stakeholder network, and clear processes to guide the implementation and experimentation work ahead.
EVOLVE2CARE is grounded in a rigorous scientific approach to ensure the highest possible impact and generate results that reach beyond the state of the art. As this is the first year of the project, major scientific contributions are expected as results mature in the second year. To date, we have conducted an extensive study on barriers and enablers of transitional care innovation, which has been published in conference proceedings and will also appear in an upcoming journal publication. In addition, we have published guidelines for data collection in the context of Living Lab access, as well as a study examining the role of Living Labs in clinical research. The project’s KPI framework represents another significant scientific output, expected to have broad influence within the research community and to serve as a practical guide for quantifying innovation outcomes in transitional care.