Objective
Foot disorders are recognised as a large social problem in the EU; app. 35% of the population suffer from serious foot problems. In most cases orthopaedic treatment by means of shoes or orthotics is the best if not the only possible treatment. Therefore, the foot care trade (app. 98% SME's), has an increasing importance through EU with more than 24.000 SME-companies and a total turnover of 7.525 million.
However, this sector is still highly fragmented with huge differences between EU countries. EU countries have also to face the increase in health care costs due to a.o. the ageing population. This is both an opportunity and a risk for the foot care sector. It urgently needs to increase the effectiveness of treatment and to reduce costs in order to gain the possibilities they have. Introduction of improvements would also allow a reduction of 5-8% of serious feet problems, improve the quality of life of more than 1.500.000 EU citizens and save about 150 Million per year.
The objective is to reduce the costs of orthopaedic footwear production of minimal 20% with improved and controllable medical quality, and preserve the competitetiveness of the trade. This will be done by: a. Improve the innovation level and the know-how base of orthopaedic shoe/insole making companies in the treatment of foot disorders b. Generate a common space through Europe in which procedures and methods are shared about the treatment of foot disorders.
To increase the innovation level the project aims to:
- Develop new design criteria, procedures and techniques for shoe/foot orthotics treatment: reduce production/delivery time with at least 35%
- Develop 2 new materials and from that innovative products: active pressure-responding foot orthoses
- Develop new cost effective production techniques for shoes/orthotics, reducing costs with min. 30%
- Innovate the prescription & evaluation of the shoes/orthotics by using better ICT-tools, reducing the medical treatment costs with minimal 15%.
Fields of science
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
Keywords
Call for proposal
FP6-2004-SME-COLL
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Funding Scheme
Collective - SMEs-Collective research projectsCoordinator
DELFT
Netherlands
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Participants (22)
SCHIEDAM
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TERNI
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ZLIN
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MOLINA DE SEGURA - MURCIA
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SEVILLA
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PETERNA VALENCIA
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KAUNAS
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EINDHOVEN
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FERENTILLO (TR)
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VALENCIA
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BARBERA DEL VALLES (BARCELONA)
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BARCELONA
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VALENCIA
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SEVNICA
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TERNI
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PRAHA 9
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XATIVA (VALENCIA)
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ALMAZORA
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ZLIN
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TRZIC
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PERUGIA
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ROTTERDAM
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