Final Report Summary - ASAPS (Sharing Age<br/>A Sharing Approach to Promoting Science)
Executive Summary:
The ASAPS project received funding under the Seventh Framework Programme - Health - Communicating the benefits of European research to the general public (2012.4.1-4). The funding specifically aimed to support coordination actions that communicate the effects of health-related research to the general public. The acronym ASAPS (A Sharing Approach to Promoting Science) describes the process through which this two-year project which ran from October 2012 to September 2014 aimed to achieve its goals.
The overarching aims of the ASAPS project were to:
1. Communicate the benefits of European health research to the general public
2. Promote active and healthy ageing
The project specifically focuses on brain health and brain research and the chosen method was an online digital campaign with sharing at the core. The online campaign (Hello Brain) overtly promotes brain health and covertly directs members of the general public to content highlighting EU brain research.
Multi-lingual outputs produced by the project include a series of short animated films, short filmed interviews with scientists, a documentary about European research, a website that provides easy-to-understand information about the brain, brain health and brain research, an app (mobile, web and print) that supports users to be proactive about their brain health, printed materials and events.
The ASAPS contributes to the coordination of high-quality research and increases the societal impact of research through a number of value adding activities that transform the raw material of research into tangible outputs. The project has increased the visibility of research and raised awareness of the importance of brain health.
The project engaged in extensive dissemination activities actively engaging with the general public. The project has also received considerable coverage in print, online and broadcast media. THe project coordinators will continue to host the website and app and will engage in dissemination at least until 2016.
Project Context and Objectives:
Project Context and Main Objectives
Context
Although the EU has been funding superb health research, the general public, who stand to benefit most, are frequently unaware of this research that is conducted on their behalf. This project aimed to increase the societal impact and visibility of EU funded health research while also promoting active and healthy ageing, placing a specific focus on brain health and brain research.
Communications, like science, is a complex and fast-evolving area. Communications are becoming more social, digital, and interactive. One of the primary ways in which older adults use the Internet is to educate themselves regarding their health. Our shared approach to content creation and science promotion sets our project apart from other platforms that promote science because we aim to engage our audience from the outset and embed them in the creation of idea and content.
Our communications campaign employs user-experience design, digital technologies, social media and multi-platform story telling to raise awareness about brain health and increase the visibility of important EU research that has real relevance for the general public.
The ASAPS project received funding under the Seventh Framework Programme - Health - Communicating the benefits of European research to the general public (2012.4.1-4). The funding specifically aimed to support coordination actions that communicate the effects of health-related research to the general public.
The ASAPS project is built on two separate but equally important ideas:
a) Science: The Importance and Relevance of EU-Funded Ageing Research.
Population ageing is a global phenomenon that poses formidable challenges associated with the health and quality of life of seniors. Failure to understand and develop effective strategies to promote healthy ageing among the general population will have devastating social and economic consequences. Currently there are 150 million Europeans aged over 50. Population ageing is forecast to attain unprecedented levels in 31 European countries over the next 50 years.
Unfortunately, while the length of life is increasing, failing mental function frequently impairs the quality of those extra years. Cognition is critical not only for mental health, but also for physical health, and social and emotional wellbeing. In turn, physical health, psychological health and degree of social engagement affect cognitive health. Decline in cognitive abilities, like memory and attention, represents the most profound threat to active and healthy ageing and heralds economic and social catastrophe. Age-related cognitive decline is associated with increased risk for dementia, increased neuropsychiatric symptoms and increased health-care costs. Dementia care currently costs more than heart disease, stroke and cancer care costs combined. Yet dementia research attracts only 5% of the funding devoted to cancer research. There are currently 7 million people in Europe living with dementia.
The heterogeneity of cognitive functioning observed in older adults together with the scientific discovery that the brain is plastic has sparked considerable amounts of European research. This research is seeking ways to maintain cognitive function, prevent decline, extend independent living and promote active and healthy ageing from multiple levels of analysis, making it an interesting and rich topic for dissemination. Ageing affects everyone therefore potentially all EU citizens will directly benefit from this kind of research, making it a perfect choice for communication.
b) Communications: The importance of user experience techniques and digital media in developing and implementing public awareness campaigns.
EU citizens are bombarded by thousands of marketing messages every day. Many public service communications campaigns fail because they lack a critical ingredient required to encourage adoption and ownership, which create cut-through and impact. The task of disseminating scientific research beyond internal or specialist audiences requires that we accept that we are moving from the science research space into the communications space. We are no longer competing with other science research projects for the attention of the individual, but with all other content owners vying for the public’s attention.
We believe that empathy is a critical ingredient required to effectively embed the benefits of EU-funded research within the hearts and minds of EU citizens. Film is the medium that is most capable of producing emotional as well as rational responses. By leveraging digital media we invited users to participate in the creation of the communications programme, with the intention of creating a community that owns the nascent content. Throughout the project we facilitated, shaped and directed this user-focused sharing approach to promoting science; placing relevance and empathy at the heart of our thinking. We created a multi-platform communications campaign that delivered relevant content across the web, mobile devices and media - creating a rich authentic user experience, shared across Europe by European Citizens.
Objectives
1. Increase public awareness of the challenge of cognitive decline - and the research the EU is funding to find innovative solutions to the problem through the delivery of a package of high-quality, high-impact factual films.
2. Facilitate dissemination of the overarching communications campaign by delivering a sustainable, user-centered website with richly designed user experience.
3. Increase the impact of European research by implementing an innovative communications campaign that harnesses sharing and incorporates cutting edge communications, public relations, social media, and multi-platform digital and broadcast marketing strategies.
4. Increase awareness of the benefits of Europe-wide collaborative research and technology development and industry-academia collaboration by highlighting compelling collaborative scientific research.
5. Actively promote European ageing research by growing a Sharing Age community of highly-engaged participants, conversant in the subject of scientific ageing research, who will contribute to the production of relevant broadcast content and share and recommend campaign content throughout their networks.
6. Encourage the general public to engage in a conversation about ageing research by building an interactive website and blog as well as deploying a range of digital tools. These will include a dedicated mobile and iPad app and an accessible web TV platform. These assets will showcase scientific content as well as facilitate platform-side commenting, interaction and sharing.
7. Promote active and healthy ageing by transforming empirical data into useable, interpretable and engaging health and well-being information to be delivered across multiple platforms
.
8. Encourage sharing of future European scientific research by creating a model in the form of a Project Legacy document so that A Sharing Approach to Promoting Science can be adopted by the general public and adapted by other consortia to other research topics, or in multiple languages.
9. Demonstrate the multi-lingual potential of the project by delivering key content, including web content, viral and short films, PR content, print materials and the Project Legacy document in English, French and German.
The Problem addressed by the project objectives
Under the Seventh Framework Programme, EU research expenditure in the area of Health was €2,797 million between 2007 and 2010, with a projected expenditure of a further €2,780 million between 2011 and 2013 . Despite this considerable expenditure, EU citizens are frequently unaware of this investment in their health. The EU Green Paper ‘From Challenges to Opportunities: Towards a Common Strategic Framework for EU Research and Innovation Funding’ highlights the problem by pointing out the need to increase societal impact of EU-funded research, stating that ‘better communication of our objectives and the relevance of our actions to a wider audience is also needed’ (p.6). The ASAPS project objectives directly address this problem by selecting important research that is of real relevance to the general public, placing this excellent EU-funded research in context, demonstrating its relevance and communicating it to the general public in an entertaining and meaningful way.
Needs addressed by the project objectives
Analysis of public consultation , conducted by the EU, stresses the need for closer and more direct interactions between the research community and EU citizens. Suggestions on how to achieve this include clear communication and promotion of science as well as direct involvement of citizens in the whole chain of research and innovation. These responses reflect a public who no longer wish to play a passive role in the consumption of information; they want to be involved and they want to contribute. This project directly addressed this need by involving users in all stages of the project and by developing a vehicle through which ongoing communication can occur.
The project objectives have resulted in tangible multi-lingual deliverables (e.g. website, films, mobile apps, DVDs, print materials) and considerable activities (e.g. social interaction, volunteering, outreach) that are aimed at high-impact promotion of brain health and brain research to the general public.
Project Results:
Description of main results
Overview
The overarching aims of the ASAPS project were to:
1. Communicate the benefits of European health research to the general public
2. Promote active and healthy aging
The campaign specifically focuses on brain health and brain research and the chosen method was an online digital campaign with sharing at the core. The online campaign (Hello Brain) overtly promotes brain health and covertly directs members of the general public to content highlighting EU brain research.
Assets produced by the project include a series of short animated films, short interviews with scientists, a documentary about European research, a website that provides easy-to-understand information about the brain, brain health and brain research, an app (mobile, web and print) that supports users to be proactive about their brain health, printed materials and events.
The description of project results below corresponds to the work packages (WPs) in which the deliverables were embedded. There were a total of six WPs in the project. These were:
• WP1: Project coordination
• WP2: Scientific Content Development
• WP3: User Interaction and Outcome Analysis
• WP4: Campaign Development and Delivery
• WP5: Digital Platform Design and Delivery
• WP6: Film Production
The outputs from each WP in turn contributed to the realization of the project objectives.
WP1: Project coordination
WP1 was established to oversee the management and coordination of the project.
The specific objectives of WP1 were to:
• Deliver the project on time and in line with forecasted budgets
• Facilitate the timely realization of each project objective, deliverable and milestone
• Ensure that the contractual obligations of the consortium were met
• Establish effective communication infrastructure
Key deliverables from WP1 were:
• Project management portal
• Ethical issues report
A project management portal was delivered to facilitate communication, collaboration and knowledge management. All admin, reporting, project, financial and resource management tasks were completed. All WP1 objectives were attained, all tasks completed and all deliverables delivered. In addition ethics and data protection issues were given due consideration and an ethical issues report was delivered.
WP2: Scientific Content Development
WP2 was established to research, develop, and document the scientific and educational content that was further developed and communicated by WPs 4, 5 and 6. The outputs from WP2 specifically contribute to the attainment of Project Objectives 4 and 7.
The specific objectives of WP2 were to:
• Select EU-Funded ageing research
• Develop scientific content
• Develop educational content
• Ensure that the integrity of the scientific content was preserved across campaign elements
Key deliverables from WP2 were:
• Research project reports
• Scientific contextual narrative
• Educational content
Selecting research projects
The overarching objective of the ASAPS project is to communicate the effects of health-related scientific research into cognitive ageing to the general public. In order to ensure that selected projects demonstrated the positive effects of Europe-wide collaborative research and technology development, and the benefits of cross-cultural collaborations, ASAPS project coordinators TCD cast the net wide to identify projects managed not only by the Health Directorate but also managed by other Directorates within the European Commission. Adopting this approach not only provided variety of content for the ASAPS outputs but also ensured that the research selected reflects the wider European context. In this way the ASAPS project can contribute to the coordination of high-quality EU-funded research.
Seeking ways to maintain cognitive function, prevent decline, tackle dementia, extend independent living and promote active and healthy ageing is a vibrant and active area of research that is being addressed from multiple levels of analysis by scientists and innovators from multiple disciplines. These projects are funded under a variety of Research and Innovation initiatives across a number of EC research domains. In addition, age-related health challenges frequently require cross cutting research that filters across the entire gamut of research fields. As a consequence there currently exists no central database that allows the easy identification of cognitive ageing research projects relevant to the ASAPS project and Hello Brain campaign.
The first goal under this deliverable, therefore, was to create a database of EU-funded research projects that are relevant to cognitive ageing, cognitive impairment, cognitive decline and dementia. To identify projects TCD conducted key-word searches of existing EC databases. In addition and in parallel, TCD placed public calls inviting scientists working in the field to contact us directly or tell us about their research via an online questionnaire.
In order to ensure that the research selected was aligned with the key messages, which have been developed in parallel, guidelines were devised to create a short-list. The guidelines were informed by the ASAPS project aims and objectives, the Consortium’s combined scientific and communication’s knowledge and output from user-consultation and desk-research. Key criteria included:
1. Projects should explicitly address issues associated with cognitive ageing, impairment, decline, or dementia rather than ageing generally.
2. Project aims should ideally address at least one of the following:
a. enhance cognitive function
b. delay dementia
c. cure dementia
d. extend independent living
e. promote active and healthy ageing
f. improve quality of life for older adults
g. improve quality of life for people with dementia
3. Project goals should ideally aim to:
a. Increase understanding
b. Develop methods for prevention, intervention, treatments or cure.
c. Develop or promote, through education or other means, active and healthy ageing
d. Improve quality of care
e. Develop supports
f. Promote or develop methods to extend independent living
4. Project outputs should ideally include
a. Increased understanding
b. Increased awareness
c. Identification of risk factors
d. Biomarkers
e. Novel interventions, treatments, technologies or supports
5. Projects should ideally relate to the key campaign messages (see WP3) and so should relate to one of the following:
a. Cognitive decline is not inevitable
b. Plasticity
c. Cognitive reserve
d. Solutions
e. Cognitive ageing
f. Demographic ageing
g. Dementia
h. Cognitive function
i. Brain function
j. Brain ageing
k. Factors that influence decline or dementia
Applying the above selection criteria allowed TCD to produce a shortlist of 53 exciting and relevant projects funded under FP7-Health, FP7-ICT, AAL and CIP.
At this point project officers and other relevant EC staff were contacted to obtain their input and benefit from their knowledge of the projects and to ensure that important, interesting or exciting projects were not missed during our selection process. Systematic procedures were put in place to identify projects and guidelines were prepared to inform the selection process. Furthermore the outcome from the user-needs report and input from EC staff were also considered when selecting the projects.
Further detailed information about each of the shortlisted projects and their status was compiled from a combination of EC databases, project websites, project publications, online questionnaires completed by interested scientists, and from direct communication with the project coordinators and project officers. This information was shared with the partners via the ASAPS project management portal, in two staggered reports to facilitate the development of project films and other campaign content.
The database was used over the lifespan of the project to identify the six projects featured in the documentary (The Age of the Brain) and to recruit interviewees for the campaign website (www.hellobrain.eu/research).
Researcher reluctance was identified as a possible risk in the project proposal. In a climate where scientists are repeatedly contacted by commercial agents promising to promote research in return for payment we needed to ensure that when scientists were contacted by us that they understood that we were reputable and genuinely funded by the European Commission. Despite furnishing research projects with a letter of recommendation from Didier Gambier, Head of Unit DG Health, we still found that researchers were suspicious of our motives and sceptical when we explained that we were going to shine the spotlight on their research without charging them for the service. As a consequence initial recruitment was slow. However once we had posted some interviews with reputable scientists on the campaign website, scientists were keen to partake. The interviews and a trailer for the documentary can be viewed at http://hellobrain.eu/en/research. As with all project content, the interviews are also available in French http://hellobrain.eu/fr/research and German http://hellobrain.eu/de/research.
Developing Scientific Content
To understand the benefits and significance of scientific research conducted with public funds, the general public must first understand the societal challenge that the research seeks innovative solutions to. We prepared a report that describes the key narrative (cognitive ageing) and gives context by providing factual content that explains the current scientific understanding of brain function, brain ageing, cognitive ageing and the factors that interact with and influence cognitive decline.
Technological advances have facilitated incredible progress in the field of neuroscience over the last 20 years. For example brain plasticity, the ability of the brain to change neural connections in order to cope with new and challenging circumstances, is one of the most exciting scientific discoveries of recent years. Scientists are currently trying to unravel the molecular basis of this process in order to reveal how memory and learning occur and how declines in these faculties might be reversed. Neuroscientists have also discovered that the adult brain generates new nerve cells (neurons) on an ongoing basis. This process, known as neurogenesis, actively occurs in the hippocampus, an area of the brain known to play a key role in memory and learning and an area preferentially affected in some types of dementia.
However progress in scientific research is slow and usually occurs in iterative steps or in piecemeal fashion. As a consequence the benefit for the general public is often difficult to pinpoint because it is rarely associated with a single breakthrough discovery. The information in this report formed the backbone of the content for the ‘brain’ section of the Hello Brain website, giving the brain research and the brain health information context and adding to relevance and meaning.
The content of the report was then transformed by our professional science communicators into the easy-to-understand information available on the campaign website (http://hellobrain.eu/en/brainhealth/brain). Finally the content was professionally translated and localized to French (http://hellobrain.eu/fr/brainhealth/brain) and German (http://hellobrain.eu/de/brainhealth/brain).
Developing educational content
The educational content was informed by the ASAPS project objectives and the user-needs report (see WP3). A report containing educational content was prepared to facilitate clear messaging for the user across the various elements of the campaign (web, short films, documentary, apps, print and media) and to assist partners in the development of the project outputs. A key objective of the ASAPS project is to deliver educational content that has the capacity to promote active and healthy ageing and extend independent living whilst also increasing the visibility of European research. The educational content speaks directly to the key messages of the campaign (see user-needs report) by providing factual content that explains the current scientific understanding of brain within the context of the campaign key messages and its relevance for brain health, giving rise to practical information and top tips.
The content of the educational report was transformed by our science communicators into engaging easy-to-understand information ultimately delivered via the short films, the brain health section of the website (http://hellobrain.eu/en/brainhealth/health) the Hello Brain Health App (https://itunes.apple.com/ie/app/hello-brain-health/id911405368?mt=8&uo=4) and print materials (see attachments). All of the content for the films, app and website was translated and localized to French (www.hellobrainhealth.eu/fr/brainhealth/health) and German (http://hellobrain.eu/de/brainhealth/health).
Ensuring scientific integrity
A scientific advisory board comprised of clinicians, scientists, researchers and science communicators was appointed by the steering committee. Their responsibility was to ensure that the scientific integrity of content produced for the campaign was retained after it had been transformed for public consumption. In addition, researchers and scientists who appeared in the documentary or who were interviewed for the website were given the opportunity to proof and approve the scientific content prior to publication.
WP3: User Interaction and outcome analysis
WP3 was established to ensure that the user and sharing are always at the core of the project. The outputs from WP3 specifically contribute to the attainment of Project Objectives 5 and 8.
The specific objectives of WP3 were to:
• Identify user needs and facilitate user consultation to ensure a user-centered design process
• Build a sharing community
• Deliver project legacy document
• Deliver outcome analysis
Key Deliverables from WP3 were:
• User needs report
• Legacy Document
User needs report and user involvement
The ASAPS project engaged users from the outset in order to embed them in the creation of content and to ensure that the project outputs have impact and real relevance for the audience. The content of the films was determined in a top down fashion by the cognitive ageing experts at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and in a bottom up or grassroots approach by the users themselves. TCD have an in depth understanding of the challenge of cognitive ageing and demographic ageing. They also understand the nature of the research being carried out across Europe and the solutions that have already emerged. This expertise and broad perspective allowed them outline key information that the user needs to know in order to understand that they can benefit from research.
Cognitive ageing is a topic largely unfamiliar to the general public, so they may be unaware of the gap in their knowledge and consequently may not explicitly articulate specific needs with regard to the communication of cognitive ageing research. We engaged in online consultation with the general public, about their current knowledge and appetite for health science information on the topic of cognitive ageing. This survey allowed us to identify whether there was a need for the provision of cognitive ageing knowledge (e.g. were there misconceptions or knowledge gaps?).
We also asked the users to share information about themselves, their health worries and fears and their health information seeking behaviours. This data, when coupled with published literature, offered insight that helped us to establish the level at which to base our campaign and messaging. This ensured that the finer focus of the knowledge that we ultimately imparted not only has relevance but also has the capacity to induce empathy and to increase the likelihood that the information will resonate and be shared. By providing information that has relevance we increase the likelihood that it will have impact for the individual, possibly by encouraging a change in brain health behaviours.
The results of the online questionnaire and the literature survey indicated both a need and a demand for health science information. Europeans surveyed are specifically interested in new medical discoveries, research results, causes and treatments rather than research processes, the researchers or ethical issues. The ASAPS consortium already know that the European Commission want to increase the visibility of European health research but this report demonstrates that the European Commission’s objective will address a real need as identified by members of the general public.
Europeans surveyed trust scientific researchers working in a university and the medical professions above all when it comes to information on science or medical research and feel that the former are best qualified to explain scientific and technological developments. This, of course was good news for ASAPS and the Hello Brain campaign especially as the project is led by TCD who have an international reputation in ageing research. It also underscored the need for us to recruit scientists to speak directly about their research via our films. However while Europeans feel that scientists should communicate the message about science they feel that they are currently not very efficient at doing so.
Given that the main focus of the Hello Brain campaign is online, it is encouraging to discover that the majority of internet users use the internet for health purposes. Finally the results of our questionnaire and the literature survey confirm that the general public are hungry for knowledge about cognitive ageing, memory and dementia, and are eager to be informed by reliable scientists who can give them easily digestible facts coupled with practical advice. So it seems that ASAPS and its Hello Brain campaign is on the right track; there is a need and an audience, and we have the knowledge and the scientific understanding to provide the content and the know-how to translate the empirical information into understandable, practical information that has the capacity to change people’s lives.
In order to highlight the benefit of cognitive ageing research we needed to put it in context and help people to understand that it is important, essential and relevant to everyone. We needed to make people aware that cognitive ageing is a challenge. We also needed to explain why demographic ageing compounds this challenge and necessitates a solution. In addition we wanted to demonstrate that the European scientists are actively engaged in this endeavour and that the fruit of their labours can benefit the general public.
There is extensive evidence that users want more health information and involvement, with users actively seeking to become part of the solution and not just the problem. The user needs report (D3.1) was used by the partners over the lifespan of the project as a reference document and its content was taken into account, together with the outcome of ongoing consultation, during design, development and implementation stages of the project. The report discusses the key messages required to contextualise the scientific research for the user and informed the selection of the research projects highlighted by the campaign to ensure that they have relevance for our audience.
From the outset ASAPS promised to:
A. Provide context for the user. Explain the challenge. Why it is important. How it is relevant.
B. Communicate relevant science that seeks the solutions
C. Provide empirically grounded information that is of benefit to members of the general public
The following key messages were identified to form the backbone of the film campaign:
• Key Message - Cognitive Ageing is a Challenge - Research is Necessary
• Key Message - European Scientists are Seeking Solutions
• Key Message – Cognitive Decline is Not Inevitable
• Key Message – The Brain is Plastic
• Key Message – Cognitive Reserve
• Key Messages – Science has already provided some Solutions.
The user needs report described above was the first of many user consultations that occurred, ensuring that principles of user-centered design were be embedded across the lifespan of the project. Volunteers shared their views and played an active role in shaping the design of the campaign both online and in person at workshops and focus groups held in Ireland and Belgium. Volunteer attitudes to technology were assessed and opportunities were created for the exploration of website content and functionality. Users also provided input on the mobile application architecture and functional specifications. A sample user-group was also engaged in online beta testing for the campaign website and app and were encouraged to provide feedback and improvement suggestions. The same approach will be employed for the mobile site (using a different test group). Users response to visual stimuli was also considered and influenced the tone of the campaign. Adult users of all ages were involved in consultation and testing.
Over the lifespan of the project we have actively engaged with users via outreach activities, events and social media. In addition many users have volunteered as Hello Brain champions and ambassadors committed to sharing the campaign messages in their own communities.
Legacy
The core campaign print materials produced by the project are preserved and made freely available in the resources section of the Hello Brain website in English (www.hellobrain.eu/en/resources) French (www.hellobrain.eu/fr/resources) and German www.hellobrain.eu/de/resources in the form of downloadable documents. These pdf documents have also been appended as attachments to this final report. The resources section also contains detailed guidelines for printing and translation.
Textless versions of the films can be made available on request and the resources section of the website contains detailed guidelines for re-versioning of the films to other languages.
WP4: Campaign Development and Delivery
WP4 was established to develop a campaign identity, concept and strategy and to deliver the campaign. The outputs from WP4 specifically contribute to the attainment of Project Objectives 3 and 6.
The specific objectives of WP4 were to:
• Design an identity
• Develop the campaign concept and strategy
• Deliver a high-impact campaign package
Key deliverables for WP4 were
• Campaign Concept and Assets
• Campaign Strategy
• Campaign Events
• Print Materials
Campaign concept and assets
The campaign brief used to inform the development of the campaign concept referenced the following elements:
• The overall objectives of the project, including the key audiences
• The User Needs Report (WP3)
• The insights from consumer focus groups (WP3)
• The Scientific Context including key concepts and key messages (WP2)
• Desk Research on related health promotion campaigns
From a functional perspective the campaign concept needed to speak about the challenge in an engaging way, give people good news, encourage people to engage with science, encourage people to share what they learned and must have had the capacity to work on a variety of levels for a variety of audiences in multiple languages.
While a number of great concepts were developed the partners were unanimously in agreement that the Hello Brain concept provided the best basis for the overall campaign.
The Hello Brain idea is all about communication and dialogue. It uses one of the most commonly understood words across many languages and has the brain as a central motif. The concept
• Is friendly in tone
• Uses simple language
• Talks about the brain directly
• Encourages communication
• Is playful
The concept was assessed on a range of applications to test that it worked across multiple platforms and was designed to be flexible and work with the key messages of the campaign. Participants that had taken part in focus groups that informed the design were again invited to comment on the concept from their perspective. Respondents indicated that the overall idea and tone were relevant and engaging. In particular, they liked the idea that it featured “ordinary people – not experts” and that it was easy to understand.
The concept included a logo/icon, colour palette and photographic style as key elements that worked together to create the overall concept. Over the lifespan of the project the concept was further developed to include bespoke illustrations that are used across campaign materials (website, app, print etc.) giving the campaign a very distinctive and cohesive feel.
The ‘Hello Brain’ icon or symbol, consisting of a ‘speech bubble’ in the shape of a brain, immediately conveys our topic – we want to talk about the brain. ‘Hello’ is one of the most commonly understood words, whatever language people speak – we want people to start talking and thinking about the brain and to share new knowledge and experience they will gain by engaging with the science around the brain and cognitive ageing. The playful photography style, with the eyes always upwards, towards the brain, and cropped so that the top part of the head is foregrounded, continues the emphasis on the brain and is a flexible format so that people of different ages, gender and ethnicity can be included. The posters/brochures show a clean line, allowing for our key messages to be conveyed without clutter. The tone of voice is clear, accessible and straightforward. The ‘hello’ is always an invitation to start engaging in a dialogue.
The concept is:
• Simple
• People-centred
• Empathic and engaging
• Capable of being adapted by all of our stakeholders
• Able to work in different media/channels
It is flexible enough to act as an overall campaign platform that will facilitate all involved in producing communications for the project to:
• Talk about the problem in an engaging way
• Give people the good news
• Encourage people to engage with the science
• Share their experience and their learning
• Communicate cross-culturally
Campaign print materials have been appended to the final report as attachments. Campaign concept, assets, photography and illustrations can be viewed on the website www.hellobrain.eu and the Hello Brain Health App which can be downloaded for free from the App store (https://itunes.apple.com/ie/app/hello-brain-health/id911405368?mt=8&uo=4).
Campaign strategy
As described in the section on WP3 above, a number of key messages were identified that form the backbone of the campaign and the development of campaign outputs (films, app, website, and printed material).
• Cognitive ageing is a challenge - Research is necessary
• European scientists are seeking and providing solutions
• Cognitive decline is not an inevitable part of ageing
• The brain is plastic and can change even in later life
• Cognitive reserve offers protection against decline
• It is possible and important to be proactive about brain health
The next section gives an overview of the campaign idea, goals and how the key messages are communicated.
Main Campaign Idea:
Do one thing everyday to boost your brain health
“Brush your teeth – Buff your brain”
Members of the general public are able to take on the challenge via the Hello Brian website and the Hello Brain Health app.
The Hello Brain website (www.hellobrain.eu) provides empirically grounded information about the brain and brain health. It offers 5 Top Tips on how to take action. There are 5 colour coded brain-buff categories that are aligned with the 5 Top Tips. User’s progress is recorded via a personal success ‘Brainbow’. Those who take the challenge are expected not only to do something every day to boost their brain health but are encouraged to select from the different categories to ensure that the ‘Brainbow’ that they build is colourful like a rainbow.
5 Top Tips
1. Get physically active
2. Stay socially engaged
3. Challenge your brain
4. Manage stress, think young, and think positive
5. Adapt your lifestyle to protect your brain
Buff Categories
• Physical
• Social
• Mental
• Attitude
• Lifestyle
While the website is mainly about Awareness the App is about Action (People can also take the challenge via the website or use the print version)
The Action is sub-divided into:
Activity, Attitude and Lifestyle
Activity:
The first three buff categories are essentially all about activity but broken into three domains - physical, social and mental activities
Attitude:
Manage Stress, think young and think positive
Lifestyle:
A number of risk factors have been identified and these include lifestyle factors such as smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, obesity, and diet.
Sharing
A philosophy of sharing is at the core of the Hello Brain campaign strategy and users are encouraged to share films, website content and app activity. To supplement this, we used social media to raise awareness of the campaign and to build a community who share campaign content through their own networks. To maximise sharing, social media profiles updates were coordinated across the lifespan of the project and lead partner TCD have agreed to continue this activity beyond the project end date. Social bookmarklets feature on all web content pages to encourage users to share content among their social networks. Key ageing advocates working at national level across Europe have been recruited to act as ambassadors with a view to promoting the Hello Brain Campaign and key messages within their own networks.
Campaign Goals
Long-term Goal
To make more Europeans aware of the importance of brain health and how to take action to protect their brain health.
Short-Term Campaign Goals
Awareness Goals (website content)
Our online and media communications have communicated to Europeans that:
• Cognitive ageing is a challenge - Research is necessary
• European scientists are seeking and providing solutions
• Cognitive decline is not an inevitable part of ageing
• The brain is plastic and can change even in later life
• Cognitive reserve offers protection against decline
• It is possible and important to be proactive about brain health
Our print and online communications will have communicated to European primary care practitioners that:
• They can give their patients lifestyle advice to promote brain health
• Hello Brain is the place to send patients for trustworthy online information
Our online communications will have highlighted the work of EU researchers and provided them with a platform to:
• Promote their research
• Regularly connect with members of the general public online
Call to action Goals
We have demonstrated that an increased number of Europeans are actively engaged in protecting their own brain health.
This has been achieved through the creation and distribution of:
Key assets used in the campaign (films, website, and an app).
Films
Bite-sized animated films that communicate the campaign key messages and drive traffic to the website
Hello Brain website
The Hello Brain website has two main sections: BRAIN and HEALTH. Each has a number of sub-sections with content under specific topics, all of which reinforce the key messages of the campaign.
Hello Brain Health App
This app is designed to support users who take on the challenge to do one thing everyday that is good for their brain health.
Social Media Platforms
Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube accounts encourage users to engage with the Hello Brain app, website and videos and share this content. They are also encouraged to share their own experiences using these resources within their online communities.
Press Communiqués
Press releases were issued to promote the launch of Hello Brain.
Events
Three campaign events were held during the two-year project.
Campaign events
The ASAPS project is aimed at the high-impact promotion of European science and the promotion of active and healthy ageing, by means of delivering tangible products, activities and events. A series of three events (Launch, Interim and Final) were planned to create opportunities to maximise media coverage and produce public interest. These public relations milestones enabled the ASAPS project to promote both itself and the Hello Brain Campaign to a wider audience. Each event aimed to raise awareness of the importance of brain health and to increase the visibility of European brain research. The events facilitated the attainment of the overall project objectives and contributed to the strategic and coordinated dissemination of the key messages and information. The events not only represented a vehicle for disseminating key campaign messages, but also a means to start a conversation and begin building a community while also addressing the digital divide.
The Campaign Launch event included a Public Launch Event, and several subsidiary events. These events, described here, were designed to officially launch the Hello Brain Campaign and its collection of campaign assets (website, app, documentary, animated online short films, scientist interviews, social media platforms and print materials), and to communicate the key messages of the campaign to the media, Hello Brain Ambassadors, Hello Brain Champions and the general public.
Public Launch Event
The Public Launch event, aimed at Hello Brain Ambassadors, Champions, key stakeholders and members of the general public, took place on Monday 22nd September 2014 at the Stanley Quek Theatre, Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute (TBSI), Trinity College Dublin. This event was designed to launch the Hello Brain campaign, including the website (www.hellobrain.eu) the Hello Brain app for iOS and Android, the documentary film (The Age of the Brain), the short films, a major social media campaign and a variety of print materials.
27 ambassadors from all over Europe attended the event, including 13 Irish ambassadors (4 national and 9 regional ambassadors), 7 UK ambassadors and 7 other representative ambassadors from Belgium, France, Greece, German, Austria, Spain, and Slovakia.
Along with the AGE ambassadors, approximately 250 other guests attended the launch event including experts in the fields of neuroscience and ageing, ageing advocacy group members, medical professionals and members of the general public. Hello Brain packs containing print materials, DVDs and merchandise were distributed to all attendees.
The event was structured around five talks given by national and international experts in the fields of research, ageing, cognitive ageing and brain health:
Professor Vincent Cahill, the Dean and Vice President for Research and Professor of Computer Science and Trinity College Dublin.
Dr. Sabina Brennan, Coordinator of the ASAPS project, and Assistant Director of the NEIL project.
Professor Barbara Sahakian, Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology at the University of Cambridge and MRC/Wellcome Trust Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute.
Professor Barbara Demeneix, a CNRS innovation medalist, and Project Coordinator for the CRESCENDO and SWITCHBOX projects.
Helen Campbell, Vice President of Age Platform Europe and Manager of Education and Training at Age and Opportunity.
The event concluded with a lively question and answer session.
Additional events associated with the launch
On Tuesday, 23rd September 2014, several additional events took place for the Hello Brain Ambassadors who attended the Public Launch on Monday the 22nd. These events were designed to illustrate the Hello Brain Campaign’s five ‘Top Tips’ for brain health.
The following activities took place in Trinity College Dublin:
Get physically active
Ambassadors had the choice to attend a Zumba class, or a take Brisk Walk across Campus.
Stay socially engaged
A meet and greet was organised for all ambassadors at the Knowledge Exchange in TBSI, TCD. This event provided ambassadors with an opportunity introduce themselves to each other and refreshments were provided for guests.
Challenge your brain
Ambassadors received a guided tour of the Trinity College Campus, which included historical, scientific and artistic information. Ambassadors were also taken on a guided tour of the Book of Kells.
Manage Stress, Think Young, and Think Positive
Ambassadors attended a performance of ‘A Spoonful of Silence’, a piece described by one reviewer as “a lesson in mindfulness & intimate communication”. The audiences hold a warm cup in their hands and embark on a journey to the present moment.
Adapt your lifestyle to protect your brain
A healthy lunch was provided to the Ambassadors in the Lloyd Institute.
Interim Event
The Interim Event, aimed at the general public took place on May 8th 2013. The event, entitled ‘Your brain: The Secret to Healthy Ageing’ articulated the key messages of the Hello Brain Campaign, highlighted the importance of and need for brain research and gave a sneak preview of our first animated film. The event was structured around four talks given by national and international experts in the field of cognitive ageing and brain health: Dr Sabina Brennan, Prof Brian Lawlor, Prof Yakov Stern and Prof Ian Robertson. The presentations were followed by a question and answer session.
The event took place in Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute (TBSI) in Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. The event was oversubscribed and as the main venue was at full capacity, with over 300 people, we had to facilitate a further 100 waiting list guests by setting up a live video link in an overflow room within TBSI.
Dr Sabina Brennan, coordinator of the ASAPS project, delivered the keynote address. In the context of European Month of the Brain she spoke about the need to increase our awareness of the importance of brain research and brain health. She highlighted the fact that European scientists were seeking solutions and that there was a real need for improved funding for brain research and brain health. She explained that the aim of the event was to share scientific information with the audience in a way that was easy to understand and to start a conversation between scientists and the general public about brain research and brain health. Dr. Brennan set the tone of the event by dispensing with formal academic titles. She then went on to give an overview of cognitive ageing and the key findings from scientific research that form the key messages of the Hello Brain Campaign. Then each of the three speakers spoke in turn about a key aspect of the campaign from a clinical (Prof Lawlor, Risk and Protective Factors for Brain Health), scientific (Prof Stern, Cognitive reserve: from theory to intervention) and practical perspective(Prof Robertson, Seven Secrets to Brain Fitness).
Dr Sabina Brennan chaired the ensuing Question and Answer session, which was very lively and caused the event to extend well past the allotted time. People commented positively on the welcoming, relaxed approach and pointed out that dispensing with the use of formal academic titles allowed the audience to feel more comfortable and less intimidated about asking questions of the experts. Dr Brennan closed the event by giving the attendees a sneak preview of one of the Hello Brain short films. Feedback on the films at the event was very positive and conversation between scientists and the audience continued after the event.
Additional Events
We have also engaged in numerous additional activities and events to create further opportunities to facilitate pubic engagement, build a sense of community, encourage sharing of science and campaign messages and maximise media coverage and public interest. Our events and activities are always people focused and offer opportunity for conversation and community building.
The people powered Community Healthy Brain Challenge addressed the digital divide by adapting online materials for use offline. The challenge was designed to be empowering, and while the participants were given guidance from ASAPS coordinator Dr Sabina Brennan, it was not prescriptive, and the day-to-day nature of the 6-week challenge was shaped by the users who all kept diaries and were filmed pre- and post-challenge. This ‘people powered event’ was broadcast on RTE and ultimately reached an audience of 300,000 people, who were in turn given links to the information and directed to the Hello Brain website via the TV station website so that they could be empowered to take the challenge themselves.
Details of the additional events and activities are presented in the dissemination table that accompanies this report.
Final Event
The final event, described here, was designed to increase awareness of the ASAPS project and the Hello Brain Campaign amongst the general public and to communicate science in an accessible way. The event, which included ‘people participation’ activities, was designed to engage attendees with research content and motivate them to be more proactive about their brain health.
The final event, aimed at the general public, took place on the 26th of September 2014 as part of The Discover Research Dublin 2014 Trinity College Dublin in partnership with the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland, and in association with EU Researchers Night.
At Discover Research Dublin events, members of the public had access to over 50 fun, interactive, free events and activities where they can meet researchers, ask questions, participate and discover. The aim of this evening was to challenge public perception about researchers and to demonstrate the creativity and innovation that exists in research across all disciplines. The activities taking place at Discover Research Dublin were grouped under four broad themes: Body Parts, Creativity in Research, Meet the Researchers and Living Thought/Thinking Life.
Discover Research Dublin 2014 was held on the campus of Trinity College Dublin, with individual events taking place at different locations across campus.
• Dr. Sabina Brennan gave 2 talks about brain health entitled “Buff your Brain” at the Lloyd Institute (at 6pm and 7.30pm).
• There were 2 screenings of ‘The Age of the Brain’ documentary at the Lloyd Institute (at 6.30pm and 8pm).
• In addition, we set a Discover Research Hello Brain Challenge to raise awareness and encourage visitors to the visit a number of events across variety of disciplines over the evening. Hello Brain stands were placed at 7 locations around the campus where volunteers in Hello Brain t-shirts showed visitors the app, and encouraged them to take the Hello Brain Challenge at Discover Research.
Hello Brain Challenge at Discover Research Dublin
The competition, or ‘challenge’, was devised specifically for the final event in order to encourage participation across a variety of activities and disciplines and in order to demonstrate how learning and challenge are good for brain health. Participants taking the Hello Brain Challenge were given the opportunity to win a Kindle Fire HDX Tablet. To be in with a chance of winning this prize, participants had to do 3 things:
• Discover research
• Tell us what they learned
• Share their discoveries
Participants were provided with a ‘Challenge Sheet’ that they filled out over the course of the event.
Printed materials
As part of the overall communications strategy for the Hello Brain campaign, a range of printed materials were produced to ensure that the key messages of the Hello Brain campaign can be distributed through as many channels as possible. They complement the mainly digital Hello Brain campaign and are aimed at key audiences including the general public, GPs, Hello Brain Ambassadors, Hello Brain Champions, medical professionals, advocacy groups and media. In addition, a printed version of the Hello Brain App (in printed and PDF format) has also been produced to address the digital divide. This document was not part of the original deliverable but we feel it adds real value to the campaign materials.
The core print materials are available in English, French and German. The materials have been widely distributed across Europe by partners and Hello Brain Ambassadors and Champions.
WP5: Digital Platform design and delivery
WP5 was established to design, develop and deliver the websites and apps. The outputs from WP5 specifically contribute to the attainment of Project Objective 2
The specific objectives of WP5 were to:
• Deliver an engaging website
• Develop a range of digital tools (mobile website, apps, blog and managed email)
• Develop an accessible You tube channel
• Deliver detailed guidelines and training for content writing and curation
• Ensure that all digital content is curated
Key WP5 deliverables were
• Campaign Website
• App
Campaign website
The ASAPS project was inspired by two separate but equally important ideas: communications and science. The website is the digital platform that integrates these two ideas and provides the hub of the Hello Brain campaign.
The Hello Brain website is the key channel through which the ASAPS project aims to make more Europeans aware of the importance of brain health and how to take action to protect their brain health.
The website raises awareness by providing empirically grounded information about the brain and brain health and offers 5 top tips on how to take action.
The website communicates the campaign’s key messages (see WP3) and highlights the work of EU researchers.
Topics
There are two main sections on the website: BRAIN and HEALTH. Each has a number of sub-sections with content under specific topics. The home page sets out the purpose of the website, highlights the top line messages and explains the web structure and outlines the journey. Below are lists of topics that are described in articles in the BRAIN and HEALTH sections.
BRAIN (The Science)
How does your brain work?
• Brain Basics (fundamentals of brain function)
o Nifty Neurons
o Gluey Glia
o Clever Cortex
o Lobes divide up the labour
o Your three brains
o The brains outside your brain
• Your Brain Changes with Age (cognitive decline is not inevitable)
o An early head start- your brain in childhood
o The teenage brain- it explains a lot
o Adults can grow neurons too!
o DEVELAGE- the molecular view of aging
• Plastic Fantastic (explains brain plasticity: how the brain can be changed throughout life)
o Exercise- use it or lose it
o Plasticise: Boosting Plasticity
• The Reserve Team (explains cognitive reserve- how we can build up brain reserve as we age)
o Let’s think…about cognitive function
o My, how well your cognitive function has aged!
o The reserve team
• Memory: Remembrance of things past (how memory works)
o Rewinding the clock
o Fixing a hole in your memory
o When are memory lapses serious?
• Attention- What memories are made of (the role of attention in memory)
o Turning off autopilot
o Attention first, then add meaning
o Tuning out the clutter
o Pay attention to shaping your brain
• A look to the future (the future of brain health)
o Tackling fire in the brain
o Getting your brain into shape
HEALTH (The Solutions)
How do I keep my brain healthy?
• What can I do to keep my brain healthy? (advice for brain health)
o Get physically active
o Stay socially engaged
o Challenge your brain
o Change your attitude: manage stress think young, think positive
o Adapt your lifestyle to protect your brain
• Decline is not inevitable (staying sharp as you age)
o Keep sharp and get older
o Okinawa & Sardinia- addresses for a long and healthy life
o The agers who inspire
• Neuroplasticity (how people can shape their brain with their actions)
o Sculpt yourself a happy brain
o Tongue sees
o The woman who built herself a better brain
o Rats’ whiskers
• Cognitive Reserve- Keeping resilience in mind (advice on building cognitive reserve)
o Pick up a book, not a cigarette
o Don’t be reserved in your social life
o Flex the brain to delay memory loss
The website also hosts:
• Hello Brain Animated Films
• Hello Brain Interviews with Scientists
• FreeDem Films
• ASAPS Documentary (TV hour) – ‘The Age of the Brain’
A third key section of the website is dedicated to research.
RESEARCH
Brain Research: New Insights for Better Health
The aim of the research section of the website is not only to increase visibility of EU funded research but also to start a conversation between researchers and the general public.
The interviews take two forms:
Research Projects: These articles focus mainly on the research projects, explaining their importance, relevance, methods and outcomes.
• Reading DNA to stop Alzheimer’s
• Healing age-related hearing loss
• Searching for Alzheimer’s treatments
• Find out about memory loss
• Testing 3 steps to better health
• Nilvad: Can an old drug learn a new trick to help Alzheimer’s?
• Plasticise: Boosting Brain plasticity
• DEVELAGE- the molecular view of aging
• The Human Brain project: A virtual brain?
• CompanionAble: a robotic companion for brain health
• Gene hunt is on
• Play to win a younger brain
• Institutionalisation for dementia- no one-size-fits-all for Europe
• NeuroSKILL: Towards a clearer picture of the brain in Dementia
• I, Robocare- robotic home help
• TV for fitness and brains
• Good fat: can it build a healthier brain and delay dementia?
• Positive thinking for your brain
• Video recording the brain at work
• Blocking neurons may help stroke victims
• Smart tools for healthy brains
Interviews: these take the form of ‘5 minutes with...’ interviews. The aim of these articles is to put a more human face on the researcher. They focus on how the researcher got into their field of interest, the focus of their work and their hopes for the future of research.
• Five minutes with Dr. Shahaf Peleg
• Five minutes with J. Arturo Garcia-Horsman
• Five minutes with Professor Brian Lawlor
• Five minutes with Prof Ian H Robertson
• Five minutes with Prof Yaakov Stern
• Five minutes with Professor Seth Grant
• Five minutes with Prof Fiona Newell
• Five minutes with Prof Gabriele Meyer
• Five minutes with Dr. Elizabeth Kehoe
• Five minutes with Dr. Renxi Qiu
• Prof Vittorio Gallese: discoverer of mirror neurons
• Five minutes with Prof Tobias Hartmann
• Five minutes with Dr Kate Irving
Translation and localization of web content
All of the web content was professionally translated and localised to German and French, the second and third most commonly spoken languages of the EU. Careful consideration was given to localising content to ensure that the content remained engaging and that meaning was preserved and/or adapted to take account of cultural differences. Before adding to the website, all translated content was approved by native speakers who focused on quality of translation and localisation. Users have the option on every page of the website to view the content in English, French or German.
The website build was adapted to ensure that it automatically recognises the country from which the user is accessing, and provides content in this language. Website graphics were adapted to fit terms in French/German that were different lengths to their English counterparts.
Accessibility and Usability
Accessibility and usability are key tenets of the ASAPS campaign. Our consortium has a social responsibility to provide information that is accessible to all audiences- including those with disabilities, older users who potentially have age-related impairments, and those accessing the website from a range of devices (including mobile devices). We believe in the importance of equal access to information, and as the web is increasingly used for the provision of information, it is crucial that our website be highly accessible.
In order to prioritise usability and accessibility we developed usability, accessibility and compliance guidelines. The campaign website was designed in CSS and HTML5. Consistent typography was used throughout user interfaces, using a sans-serif font for optimum readability. Content was created using clear, uncomplicated language. Images and videos were used throughout the website to communicate information in the most effective way. We added ALT text descriptions for all images. Captions were created for all videos appearing on the website.
The website was built using a design which incorporates a ‘flexible layout’ that accommodates diverse display environments to enable accurate viewing on various browser software, versions, VDU screens and hardware capability and will adapt to different user requirements. To ensure that the website was accessible across multiple browsers and platforms, testing was carried out using Browserstack, an online tool that allows you to view your site across a vast range of browsers and operating services. We incorporated the feedback reports into our design process to ensure that the website was widely accessible.
A dedicated mobile version of the website was also developed.
App
The Hello Brain Challenge invites members of the general public to do one thing everyday that is good for their brain health. The Hello Brain Health App supports those taking the challenge by offering suggestions for daily activities that promote brain health.
Technical development
The Hello Brain mobile app is a hybrid HTML5-based app that supports iOS, Android and desktop browser platforms. The rationale behind adopting a hybrid app approach was to create a consistent user experience that could be accessed across a variety of devices without the need to develop multiple native applications.
The app architecture consists of a web-server backend developed in Groovy and Grails, and dedicated iOS and Android shell applications. The Grails application runs on the TomCat server and has been optimised for multiple concurrent users. The shell applications each contain an embedded webview the loads a HTML5 backend website over a secure HTTPS connection.
The content rendered in the web views uses responsive CSS, jQuery, and D3.js to create a touch friendly interactive experience that uses common app conventions. The responsive nature of the application means that it can adapt to work on various device sizes and it has been specifically designed to cater for both common phone and tablet resolutions. The performance of the app has been optimised using resource bundling, browser caching, gzip compression, and persistent cookies to provide a responsive near-native experience.
Content and Design
Content
The Hello Brain website raises awareness about the importance of brain health and brain research by providing easy-to-understand information about the brain, brain health and brain research. The Hello Brain Campaign is a call to action, asking members of the public to use this information to do one thing everyday that is good for their brain health.
In addition to the Campaign key messages identified following user consultation at the start of the project we compiled empirically grounded Top Tips to empower people to be more proactive about their brain health.
• Get physically active
• Stay socially engaged
• Challenge your brain
• Manage stress, think young, think positive
• Adapt your lifestyle to protect your brain.
This key content has been reframed, supplemented and edited for presentation via the mobile App. Users of the App receive daily suggestions of brain healthy activities (Brain Buffs), together with some information about how the activity may protect brain health. Each daily suggestion (Brain Buff) also has a ‘read more’ button for further information about the underlying scientific concept. Each of the Brain Buffs were carefully written, grounded in science and approved by members of the Scientific Advisory Board.
Some Brain Buffs have links out to videos or to social media to encourage social engagement. Within the app there is also a designated Top Tips for Brain Health section with more detailed information about each specific Top Tip Category (Physical, Social, Mental, Attitude and Lifestyle). The App also contains advice on how to exercise safely, staying hydrated and alcohol consumption. Tone of voice is consistent across all campaign materials. The Privacy Policy is also accessible from within the App.
Design
The App design incorporates a rich user experience that was informed by the initial user-needs assessment and a number of focus groups. Across the website, Apps and printed materials there is consistency in design, illustration, colour and fonts.
1 User experience and user journey
User experience and user journey
The App was developed in an iterative fashion with user experience evaluation, user consultation, user feedback and alpha and beta testing informing the process and evolution of the app user interface and overall design. Room to make design alterations in order to incorporate user suggestions was built into the process. With this app it was felt that simplicity was key.
Landing page
The app landing page is branded using the Hello Brain Logo and a Hello Brain Head that changes with each log in. In addition to the functional language and ‘Get Started’ buttons there is a banner with a direct call to action – ‘Say Hello to Brain Health’ which we believe also inherently explains the name of the app.
Instructions
Once the users click the ‘Get Started’ button they are presented with a single instruction page that explains the Hello Brain Challenge. This screen is presented each time the user logs in and can also be accessed from the burger menu within the App.
After registration or log in the user is presented with a screen that explains the App icons and overlays the Home page. This overlay serves as a welcome screen for new users. It not only introduces the icons, but also gives inexperienced users clear direction.
Homepage/Brainbow
The App offers an activity suggestion to the user each day from one of five categories each with a designated colour. Progress is recorded in a colourful five-bar graph which we call a Brainbow. Users are encouraged to balance activities in order to build a colour balanced brainbow over 100 days. The Brainbow serves as a more personal tool or interface for the user to learn about their progress through the Hello Brain Experience. It is designed to encourage and give users a way of quickly understanding their personal progress with Hello Brain.
Empty columns bounce intermittently, in a way that grabs attention and creates curiosity. When touched the bar fills to the right, revealing the category group and description together with a note of % progress towards goal.
Brain Buffs
Brain Buff pages are colour coded by activity. In additon to the 'call to action' and description there are a variety of links dependant on the Buff category.
• Buff Categories
• Physical
• Social
• Mental
• Attitude
• Lifestyle
Once the user has completed the suggested Brain Buff they click ‘done’. The user also has the option to do their own brain healthy activity or get another auto suggestion by clicking ‘Try Another’.
Achievements
Once a Buff has been completed the user is taken to a ‘Well done’ screen where they have the option to share their achievement on social media. Over the course of the 100 day challenge they receive awards when certain milestones are reached. In addition they can review their activity history via a Timeline.
Translation and Localisation
The App content was professionally translated and localised to German and French, the second and third most commonly spoken languages of the EU. App graphics were adapted to fit terms in French/German that were different lengths to their English counterparts. Careful consideration was given to localising content to ensure that the content remained engaging and that meaning was preserved and/or adapted to take account of cultural differences. Before adding to the app, all translated content was approved by native speakers who focused on quality of translation and localisation. Users have the option when they first open the App to view the content in English, French or German. Users also have the option to change their language preference by selecting ‘Your Account Details’ from the drop-down menu.
The App description, screenshots and keywords appearing on the iOS App Store and the Android Google Play Store were also localised and translated, as was the welcome email that users receive on sign up.
Usability and Accessibility
Accessibility and usability are key tenets of the ASAPS campaign. Our consortium has a social responsibility to provide information that is accessible to all audiences- including those with disabilities, older users who potentially have age-related impairments, and those accessing the app from a range of mobile devices.
In order to make the Hello Brain Health App more accessible, we built in a text-enlarger that makes the text easier to read. Consistent typography was used throughout user interfaces, using a sans-serif font for optimum readability. Content was created using clear, uncomplicated language. Images are used throughout the app to communicate information in the most effective way.
WP6: Film Production
WP6 was established to deliver a package of high-impact factual films. The outputs from WP6 specifically contribute to the attainment of Project Objective 1.
The key objectives of WP6 were to:
• Develop the factual content (narrative, documentary, interview and actual) and visual style (graphics, footage, archive) for the film package.
• Deliver a film package designed to work on multiple platforms, in multiple languages and in conjunction with website, apps and publicity campaigns.
• Maximise the impact of messages, target audience figures, appreciation and publicity for the project.
Key deliverables were:
• 6 animated films
• A documentary
A package of lightly-branded films that support the aims of the Hello Brain campaign were produced. A balance between the campaign requirements and the need to focus on EU-funded research with the requirement for content that informs, entertains and appeals to a wide audience was sought. Six short multi-lingual graphic films were produced as part of the wider campaign, that were designed to:
a) carry the six key messages of the campaign across multiple channels and
b) help to draw an audience onto the Hello Brain website
The short graphic films are seeded on youtube and vimeo and are also be embedded on the Hello Brain website. The films adopt a high-quality format with a proven track record. They have been released across multiple channels as part of the wider Hello Brain health awareness campaign and have also been used as additional content as part of outreach activities and when targeting news websites and other platforms. They are sharable and end with a hook to bring the public back to the website. The films have also been embedded on other channels with existing followers with a view to directing traffic towards the Hello Brain website. The graphic shorts have been placed as accompanying material to news stories generated by the campaign. All films were produced in English, French and German.
Short graphic films
• What makes your brain work?
• Will I lose my memory when I get old?
• How can I keep my brain sharp?
• Is exercise good for my brain?
• Is it too late to follow my childhood dreams?
• What will your life look like in 50 years?
The Hello Brain campaign was launched on 22nd September 2014. At the time of writing (19 November 2014) the films have been viewed in excess of 110,000 times.
In addition, we produced 6 additional filmed interviews with key scientists who explained key campaign messages in short jargon-free interviews.
• What is neuroplasticity and why is it important?
• Can my leisure activities protect my cognitive function?
• Can I change my brain?
• Challenge, change and learning
• The upsides of ageing
• Retirement, memory and usefulness.
A long form multi-lingual documentary, The Age of the Brain, was also produced that explores the science of cognitive ageing through the campaign messages, and highlights six EU funded research projects currently addressing the challenge. The process used to select the projects featured in the documentary and on the website is detailed under Objective 4 below. While we are currently marketing the documentary for TV broadcast it will ultimately be made available to the general public through the Hello Brain website. A special screening of the documentary was hosted during European Discover Research night in 2014. DVD copies of documentary and short films have also been distributed to key stakeholders across Europe.
Potential Impact:
Potential Impact
ASAPS is a coordination action that received funding under the Seventh Framework Programme primarily to increase the societal impact of EU funded research. The ASAPS project directly addresses the project call (HEALTH – 2012 – 4.1-4) to communicate the benefits of European research to the general public while also contributing to the broader FP7 Cooperation Health Programme objective to improve the health of European citizens through the promotion of active and healthy ageing.
Ageing is an issue of global importance and ever increasing relevance that raises considerable challenges and concerns. European research has risen to the challenge by providing answers to some problems and contributing to an increase in awareness on some key age-related issues that affect our ageing societies. Nevertheless, European ageing research remains highly fragmented mainly as a consequence of the challenges associated with coordinating both efforts and results across Europe. The Europe 2020 strategy identified demographic ageing as both a challenge and an opportunity and has prioritized the topic in flagship initiatives including ‘Innovation Union’ and ‘A digital agenda for Europe’, reaffirming the need for concrete action. Although the EC is committed to promoting open access to the results of publicly funded research, the benefits are often not communicated appropriately to potential end-users, which could result in reluctance in accepting innovative interventions and new technologies which in turn blocks the research itself. The ASAPS project directly addresses this problem, contributes to the coordination of high-quality research and increases the societal impact of research through a number of value adding activities that transform the raw material of research into tangible outputs including:
• Website
• A series of films
• Apps (smartphone, web and print)
• Print materials
• Events
• Press Communiqués
Through the delivery of these tangible outputs ASAPS has:
• Increased visibility of EU funded research
• Increased awareness of the challenge of cognitive ageing and the need for research
• Increased awareness that European researchers are actively seeking solutions
• Increased awareness of the benefits of brain research
• Increased awareness that cognitive decline is not an inevitable part of normal ageing
• Increased awareness that the brain is plastic and can change even in later life
• Increased awareness that cognitive reserve offers protection against decline
• Increased awareness that it is both possible and important to be proactive about brain health
• Increased awareness among primary care practitioners that they can give patients lifestyle advice to promote brain health and that Hello Brain is a place to send patients for trustworthy information about brain health
• Highlighted the work of EU researchers and provided them with a platform to promote their research and connect directly with the general public online
• Increased the number of people directly engaged in protecting their own brain health
Dissemination activities
The ASAPS project engaged in extensive dissemination activities (*at time of submission we encountered a problem and were unable to input some of our activities to the dissemination table - so the table only contains 63 of the 97 dissemination activities - the remaining 34 activities are included as an attachment) - The campaign was launched in the final month of the project and so the figures presented below and in the various reports attached to the final report refer mainly to the period between the project end (September 2014) and the writing of this final report (November 2014).
Website
The websites (English, French and German) provide easy-to-understand information about the brain, brain health and brain research. Since the project ended we have had almost 25,000 sessions. The majority of visitors were aged over 45 (55.8%) with the largest percentage of visitors falling into the 65+ category (23%). The site is being used by both male and female users, with a majority of female users (61.2%). Website users were primarily accessing Hello Brain from within Europe (over 70%), however people from all over the world have accessed the Hello Brain website. In the short time since the launch the website has had a good percentage of new visitors (over 65%), while also maintaing returning to the website (around 35%).
Apps
The Hello Brain Health App (available in English, French and German) provides suggestions and support to people while they undertake the Hello Brain Challenge to do one thing every day that is good for their brain health. Almost 6,000 people have downloaded the app since it was launched at the end of the ASAPS project. To facilitate those without a smart phone we also created a web version of the App and at time of writing approximately 1,000 people use this version of the App. The majority of app users are aged over 55, totalling over 47% of users (note that figures below do not reflect actual totals as Google removed some data to prevent the identification of individuals). The next largest group of users are aged 45-54 (19%), followed by 25-34 year olds (17.41%). The gender breakdown indicates that just under two-thirds of users are female (65.43%).
Films
The short films specifically made for the project have attracted over 110,000 views at the time of writing.
Print Materials
Print materials (leaflets, posters and paper version of the app) produced by the project have been and continue to be disseminated across Europe at various conferences, talks, workshops and other events. At time of writing over 70,000 flyers and leaflets have been disseminated. Some of these materials have been distributed directly to the general public and to primary care practitioners while others have been distributed to carefully selected volunteers working at national level across Europe who will in turn distribute the materials through their own networks and channels. In addition, some schools in Ireland have distributed campaign materials to their pupils. Also, the Dublin City Libraries are stocking and promoting the Hello Brain Campaign materials.
Events
Over the lifespan of the project we hosted a series of events (talks, conferences, workshops, screenings, exhibitions and challenges) aimed at the general public, the research community and other stakeholders. All events were well attended with approx. 300 attending the launch event and 400 the interim event.
Oral Presentations
The project coordinator was invited to make more than 10 oral presentations over the 24-month lifespan of the project. Most presentations were to the general public and involved relaying the key campaign messages and dissemination of campaign materials. In addition, the project coordinator also spoke to scientific audiences about the project and about the importance of science communication.
Press and Media coverage
Press communiqués were issued to announce the project funding in the first quarter of the project and also to announce the launch of the campaign in the final month of the project. We also hosted a media briefing to coincide with the launch to the general public and key stakeholders. The campaign attracted considerable attention in Ireland where the launch was held. A media book is attached to the report but highlights include:
Print
• The Irish Times – feature article in the health supplement (readership 301,000)
• The Irish Examiner (223,000)
• Irish Medical News (7400)
• Sunday Business Post (118,000)
Online
• The Medical Independent
• IrishHealth.com (140,000)
• IrishTimes.com (136,000)
• Dementia Today (5500)
• Medical News Today (9,000,000)
Radio
• Marian Finnucane Show – Interview with Coordinator (audience 350,000)
• Morning Ireland – Interview with Coordinator (audience 450,000)
Television
In addition, the project coordinator was approached by RTE, Ireland’s national broadcaster to set a community challenge involving Hello Brain materials to a group of older adults for their on ‘Doctors on Call a TV show. This TV programme was broadcast on RTE in December 2013 and ultimately reached an audience of 300,000 people, who were in turn given links to the information and directed to the Hello Brain website via the TV station website so that they could be empowered to take the challenge themselves. The programme was repeated again in June 2014.
Planned Dissemination Activities
The Project coordinators, Trinity College Dublin, through its NEIL Programme have agreed to continue hosting the websites, the App and Social media at least until the end of 2016 and will continue to engage in dissemination activities for the foreseeable future. In addition, we have identified 30 advocates working in the ageing sphere who have volunteered to act as Hello Brain Ambassadors. They will promote the Hello Brain campaign and materials through their own networks across Europe. We have also identified a number of Hello Brain Champions who have agreed to promote Hello Brain at local community level.
Campaign materials are available for download from the resources section of the website. We extend the reach of the project by making these materials freely available and by providing instructions on how to translate the materials to other languages via our various legacy documents. At the time of writing, one ambassador has already translated the materials into Spanish, while another is actively working on translating into Greek and still another is actively seeking funding to have the materials translated into Slovakian.
In addition, we are partnering with local libraries to arrange a series of Hello Brain workshops and talks for 2015.
List of Websites:
www.hellobrain.eu
hellobrain@tcd.ie
The ASAPS project received funding under the Seventh Framework Programme - Health - Communicating the benefits of European research to the general public (2012.4.1-4). The funding specifically aimed to support coordination actions that communicate the effects of health-related research to the general public. The acronym ASAPS (A Sharing Approach to Promoting Science) describes the process through which this two-year project which ran from October 2012 to September 2014 aimed to achieve its goals.
The overarching aims of the ASAPS project were to:
1. Communicate the benefits of European health research to the general public
2. Promote active and healthy ageing
The project specifically focuses on brain health and brain research and the chosen method was an online digital campaign with sharing at the core. The online campaign (Hello Brain) overtly promotes brain health and covertly directs members of the general public to content highlighting EU brain research.
Multi-lingual outputs produced by the project include a series of short animated films, short filmed interviews with scientists, a documentary about European research, a website that provides easy-to-understand information about the brain, brain health and brain research, an app (mobile, web and print) that supports users to be proactive about their brain health, printed materials and events.
The ASAPS contributes to the coordination of high-quality research and increases the societal impact of research through a number of value adding activities that transform the raw material of research into tangible outputs. The project has increased the visibility of research and raised awareness of the importance of brain health.
The project engaged in extensive dissemination activities actively engaging with the general public. The project has also received considerable coverage in print, online and broadcast media. THe project coordinators will continue to host the website and app and will engage in dissemination at least until 2016.
Project Context and Objectives:
Project Context and Main Objectives
Context
Although the EU has been funding superb health research, the general public, who stand to benefit most, are frequently unaware of this research that is conducted on their behalf. This project aimed to increase the societal impact and visibility of EU funded health research while also promoting active and healthy ageing, placing a specific focus on brain health and brain research.
Communications, like science, is a complex and fast-evolving area. Communications are becoming more social, digital, and interactive. One of the primary ways in which older adults use the Internet is to educate themselves regarding their health. Our shared approach to content creation and science promotion sets our project apart from other platforms that promote science because we aim to engage our audience from the outset and embed them in the creation of idea and content.
Our communications campaign employs user-experience design, digital technologies, social media and multi-platform story telling to raise awareness about brain health and increase the visibility of important EU research that has real relevance for the general public.
The ASAPS project received funding under the Seventh Framework Programme - Health - Communicating the benefits of European research to the general public (2012.4.1-4). The funding specifically aimed to support coordination actions that communicate the effects of health-related research to the general public.
The ASAPS project is built on two separate but equally important ideas:
a) Science: The Importance and Relevance of EU-Funded Ageing Research.
Population ageing is a global phenomenon that poses formidable challenges associated with the health and quality of life of seniors. Failure to understand and develop effective strategies to promote healthy ageing among the general population will have devastating social and economic consequences. Currently there are 150 million Europeans aged over 50. Population ageing is forecast to attain unprecedented levels in 31 European countries over the next 50 years.
Unfortunately, while the length of life is increasing, failing mental function frequently impairs the quality of those extra years. Cognition is critical not only for mental health, but also for physical health, and social and emotional wellbeing. In turn, physical health, psychological health and degree of social engagement affect cognitive health. Decline in cognitive abilities, like memory and attention, represents the most profound threat to active and healthy ageing and heralds economic and social catastrophe. Age-related cognitive decline is associated with increased risk for dementia, increased neuropsychiatric symptoms and increased health-care costs. Dementia care currently costs more than heart disease, stroke and cancer care costs combined. Yet dementia research attracts only 5% of the funding devoted to cancer research. There are currently 7 million people in Europe living with dementia.
The heterogeneity of cognitive functioning observed in older adults together with the scientific discovery that the brain is plastic has sparked considerable amounts of European research. This research is seeking ways to maintain cognitive function, prevent decline, extend independent living and promote active and healthy ageing from multiple levels of analysis, making it an interesting and rich topic for dissemination. Ageing affects everyone therefore potentially all EU citizens will directly benefit from this kind of research, making it a perfect choice for communication.
b) Communications: The importance of user experience techniques and digital media in developing and implementing public awareness campaigns.
EU citizens are bombarded by thousands of marketing messages every day. Many public service communications campaigns fail because they lack a critical ingredient required to encourage adoption and ownership, which create cut-through and impact. The task of disseminating scientific research beyond internal or specialist audiences requires that we accept that we are moving from the science research space into the communications space. We are no longer competing with other science research projects for the attention of the individual, but with all other content owners vying for the public’s attention.
We believe that empathy is a critical ingredient required to effectively embed the benefits of EU-funded research within the hearts and minds of EU citizens. Film is the medium that is most capable of producing emotional as well as rational responses. By leveraging digital media we invited users to participate in the creation of the communications programme, with the intention of creating a community that owns the nascent content. Throughout the project we facilitated, shaped and directed this user-focused sharing approach to promoting science; placing relevance and empathy at the heart of our thinking. We created a multi-platform communications campaign that delivered relevant content across the web, mobile devices and media - creating a rich authentic user experience, shared across Europe by European Citizens.
Objectives
1. Increase public awareness of the challenge of cognitive decline - and the research the EU is funding to find innovative solutions to the problem through the delivery of a package of high-quality, high-impact factual films.
2. Facilitate dissemination of the overarching communications campaign by delivering a sustainable, user-centered website with richly designed user experience.
3. Increase the impact of European research by implementing an innovative communications campaign that harnesses sharing and incorporates cutting edge communications, public relations, social media, and multi-platform digital and broadcast marketing strategies.
4. Increase awareness of the benefits of Europe-wide collaborative research and technology development and industry-academia collaboration by highlighting compelling collaborative scientific research.
5. Actively promote European ageing research by growing a Sharing Age community of highly-engaged participants, conversant in the subject of scientific ageing research, who will contribute to the production of relevant broadcast content and share and recommend campaign content throughout their networks.
6. Encourage the general public to engage in a conversation about ageing research by building an interactive website and blog as well as deploying a range of digital tools. These will include a dedicated mobile and iPad app and an accessible web TV platform. These assets will showcase scientific content as well as facilitate platform-side commenting, interaction and sharing.
7. Promote active and healthy ageing by transforming empirical data into useable, interpretable and engaging health and well-being information to be delivered across multiple platforms
.
8. Encourage sharing of future European scientific research by creating a model in the form of a Project Legacy document so that A Sharing Approach to Promoting Science can be adopted by the general public and adapted by other consortia to other research topics, or in multiple languages.
9. Demonstrate the multi-lingual potential of the project by delivering key content, including web content, viral and short films, PR content, print materials and the Project Legacy document in English, French and German.
The Problem addressed by the project objectives
Under the Seventh Framework Programme, EU research expenditure in the area of Health was €2,797 million between 2007 and 2010, with a projected expenditure of a further €2,780 million between 2011 and 2013 . Despite this considerable expenditure, EU citizens are frequently unaware of this investment in their health. The EU Green Paper ‘From Challenges to Opportunities: Towards a Common Strategic Framework for EU Research and Innovation Funding’ highlights the problem by pointing out the need to increase societal impact of EU-funded research, stating that ‘better communication of our objectives and the relevance of our actions to a wider audience is also needed’ (p.6). The ASAPS project objectives directly address this problem by selecting important research that is of real relevance to the general public, placing this excellent EU-funded research in context, demonstrating its relevance and communicating it to the general public in an entertaining and meaningful way.
Needs addressed by the project objectives
Analysis of public consultation , conducted by the EU, stresses the need for closer and more direct interactions between the research community and EU citizens. Suggestions on how to achieve this include clear communication and promotion of science as well as direct involvement of citizens in the whole chain of research and innovation. These responses reflect a public who no longer wish to play a passive role in the consumption of information; they want to be involved and they want to contribute. This project directly addressed this need by involving users in all stages of the project and by developing a vehicle through which ongoing communication can occur.
The project objectives have resulted in tangible multi-lingual deliverables (e.g. website, films, mobile apps, DVDs, print materials) and considerable activities (e.g. social interaction, volunteering, outreach) that are aimed at high-impact promotion of brain health and brain research to the general public.
Project Results:
Description of main results
Overview
The overarching aims of the ASAPS project were to:
1. Communicate the benefits of European health research to the general public
2. Promote active and healthy aging
The campaign specifically focuses on brain health and brain research and the chosen method was an online digital campaign with sharing at the core. The online campaign (Hello Brain) overtly promotes brain health and covertly directs members of the general public to content highlighting EU brain research.
Assets produced by the project include a series of short animated films, short interviews with scientists, a documentary about European research, a website that provides easy-to-understand information about the brain, brain health and brain research, an app (mobile, web and print) that supports users to be proactive about their brain health, printed materials and events.
The description of project results below corresponds to the work packages (WPs) in which the deliverables were embedded. There were a total of six WPs in the project. These were:
• WP1: Project coordination
• WP2: Scientific Content Development
• WP3: User Interaction and Outcome Analysis
• WP4: Campaign Development and Delivery
• WP5: Digital Platform Design and Delivery
• WP6: Film Production
The outputs from each WP in turn contributed to the realization of the project objectives.
WP1: Project coordination
WP1 was established to oversee the management and coordination of the project.
The specific objectives of WP1 were to:
• Deliver the project on time and in line with forecasted budgets
• Facilitate the timely realization of each project objective, deliverable and milestone
• Ensure that the contractual obligations of the consortium were met
• Establish effective communication infrastructure
Key deliverables from WP1 were:
• Project management portal
• Ethical issues report
A project management portal was delivered to facilitate communication, collaboration and knowledge management. All admin, reporting, project, financial and resource management tasks were completed. All WP1 objectives were attained, all tasks completed and all deliverables delivered. In addition ethics and data protection issues were given due consideration and an ethical issues report was delivered.
WP2: Scientific Content Development
WP2 was established to research, develop, and document the scientific and educational content that was further developed and communicated by WPs 4, 5 and 6. The outputs from WP2 specifically contribute to the attainment of Project Objectives 4 and 7.
The specific objectives of WP2 were to:
• Select EU-Funded ageing research
• Develop scientific content
• Develop educational content
• Ensure that the integrity of the scientific content was preserved across campaign elements
Key deliverables from WP2 were:
• Research project reports
• Scientific contextual narrative
• Educational content
Selecting research projects
The overarching objective of the ASAPS project is to communicate the effects of health-related scientific research into cognitive ageing to the general public. In order to ensure that selected projects demonstrated the positive effects of Europe-wide collaborative research and technology development, and the benefits of cross-cultural collaborations, ASAPS project coordinators TCD cast the net wide to identify projects managed not only by the Health Directorate but also managed by other Directorates within the European Commission. Adopting this approach not only provided variety of content for the ASAPS outputs but also ensured that the research selected reflects the wider European context. In this way the ASAPS project can contribute to the coordination of high-quality EU-funded research.
Seeking ways to maintain cognitive function, prevent decline, tackle dementia, extend independent living and promote active and healthy ageing is a vibrant and active area of research that is being addressed from multiple levels of analysis by scientists and innovators from multiple disciplines. These projects are funded under a variety of Research and Innovation initiatives across a number of EC research domains. In addition, age-related health challenges frequently require cross cutting research that filters across the entire gamut of research fields. As a consequence there currently exists no central database that allows the easy identification of cognitive ageing research projects relevant to the ASAPS project and Hello Brain campaign.
The first goal under this deliverable, therefore, was to create a database of EU-funded research projects that are relevant to cognitive ageing, cognitive impairment, cognitive decline and dementia. To identify projects TCD conducted key-word searches of existing EC databases. In addition and in parallel, TCD placed public calls inviting scientists working in the field to contact us directly or tell us about their research via an online questionnaire.
In order to ensure that the research selected was aligned with the key messages, which have been developed in parallel, guidelines were devised to create a short-list. The guidelines were informed by the ASAPS project aims and objectives, the Consortium’s combined scientific and communication’s knowledge and output from user-consultation and desk-research. Key criteria included:
1. Projects should explicitly address issues associated with cognitive ageing, impairment, decline, or dementia rather than ageing generally.
2. Project aims should ideally address at least one of the following:
a. enhance cognitive function
b. delay dementia
c. cure dementia
d. extend independent living
e. promote active and healthy ageing
f. improve quality of life for older adults
g. improve quality of life for people with dementia
3. Project goals should ideally aim to:
a. Increase understanding
b. Develop methods for prevention, intervention, treatments or cure.
c. Develop or promote, through education or other means, active and healthy ageing
d. Improve quality of care
e. Develop supports
f. Promote or develop methods to extend independent living
4. Project outputs should ideally include
a. Increased understanding
b. Increased awareness
c. Identification of risk factors
d. Biomarkers
e. Novel interventions, treatments, technologies or supports
5. Projects should ideally relate to the key campaign messages (see WP3) and so should relate to one of the following:
a. Cognitive decline is not inevitable
b. Plasticity
c. Cognitive reserve
d. Solutions
e. Cognitive ageing
f. Demographic ageing
g. Dementia
h. Cognitive function
i. Brain function
j. Brain ageing
k. Factors that influence decline or dementia
Applying the above selection criteria allowed TCD to produce a shortlist of 53 exciting and relevant projects funded under FP7-Health, FP7-ICT, AAL and CIP.
At this point project officers and other relevant EC staff were contacted to obtain their input and benefit from their knowledge of the projects and to ensure that important, interesting or exciting projects were not missed during our selection process. Systematic procedures were put in place to identify projects and guidelines were prepared to inform the selection process. Furthermore the outcome from the user-needs report and input from EC staff were also considered when selecting the projects.
Further detailed information about each of the shortlisted projects and their status was compiled from a combination of EC databases, project websites, project publications, online questionnaires completed by interested scientists, and from direct communication with the project coordinators and project officers. This information was shared with the partners via the ASAPS project management portal, in two staggered reports to facilitate the development of project films and other campaign content.
The database was used over the lifespan of the project to identify the six projects featured in the documentary (The Age of the Brain) and to recruit interviewees for the campaign website (www.hellobrain.eu/research).
Researcher reluctance was identified as a possible risk in the project proposal. In a climate where scientists are repeatedly contacted by commercial agents promising to promote research in return for payment we needed to ensure that when scientists were contacted by us that they understood that we were reputable and genuinely funded by the European Commission. Despite furnishing research projects with a letter of recommendation from Didier Gambier, Head of Unit DG Health, we still found that researchers were suspicious of our motives and sceptical when we explained that we were going to shine the spotlight on their research without charging them for the service. As a consequence initial recruitment was slow. However once we had posted some interviews with reputable scientists on the campaign website, scientists were keen to partake. The interviews and a trailer for the documentary can be viewed at http://hellobrain.eu/en/research. As with all project content, the interviews are also available in French http://hellobrain.eu/fr/research and German http://hellobrain.eu/de/research.
Developing Scientific Content
To understand the benefits and significance of scientific research conducted with public funds, the general public must first understand the societal challenge that the research seeks innovative solutions to. We prepared a report that describes the key narrative (cognitive ageing) and gives context by providing factual content that explains the current scientific understanding of brain function, brain ageing, cognitive ageing and the factors that interact with and influence cognitive decline.
Technological advances have facilitated incredible progress in the field of neuroscience over the last 20 years. For example brain plasticity, the ability of the brain to change neural connections in order to cope with new and challenging circumstances, is one of the most exciting scientific discoveries of recent years. Scientists are currently trying to unravel the molecular basis of this process in order to reveal how memory and learning occur and how declines in these faculties might be reversed. Neuroscientists have also discovered that the adult brain generates new nerve cells (neurons) on an ongoing basis. This process, known as neurogenesis, actively occurs in the hippocampus, an area of the brain known to play a key role in memory and learning and an area preferentially affected in some types of dementia.
However progress in scientific research is slow and usually occurs in iterative steps or in piecemeal fashion. As a consequence the benefit for the general public is often difficult to pinpoint because it is rarely associated with a single breakthrough discovery. The information in this report formed the backbone of the content for the ‘brain’ section of the Hello Brain website, giving the brain research and the brain health information context and adding to relevance and meaning.
The content of the report was then transformed by our professional science communicators into the easy-to-understand information available on the campaign website (http://hellobrain.eu/en/brainhealth/brain). Finally the content was professionally translated and localized to French (http://hellobrain.eu/fr/brainhealth/brain) and German (http://hellobrain.eu/de/brainhealth/brain).
Developing educational content
The educational content was informed by the ASAPS project objectives and the user-needs report (see WP3). A report containing educational content was prepared to facilitate clear messaging for the user across the various elements of the campaign (web, short films, documentary, apps, print and media) and to assist partners in the development of the project outputs. A key objective of the ASAPS project is to deliver educational content that has the capacity to promote active and healthy ageing and extend independent living whilst also increasing the visibility of European research. The educational content speaks directly to the key messages of the campaign (see user-needs report) by providing factual content that explains the current scientific understanding of brain within the context of the campaign key messages and its relevance for brain health, giving rise to practical information and top tips.
The content of the educational report was transformed by our science communicators into engaging easy-to-understand information ultimately delivered via the short films, the brain health section of the website (http://hellobrain.eu/en/brainhealth/health) the Hello Brain Health App (https://itunes.apple.com/ie/app/hello-brain-health/id911405368?mt=8&uo=4) and print materials (see attachments). All of the content for the films, app and website was translated and localized to French (www.hellobrainhealth.eu/fr/brainhealth/health) and German (http://hellobrain.eu/de/brainhealth/health).
Ensuring scientific integrity
A scientific advisory board comprised of clinicians, scientists, researchers and science communicators was appointed by the steering committee. Their responsibility was to ensure that the scientific integrity of content produced for the campaign was retained after it had been transformed for public consumption. In addition, researchers and scientists who appeared in the documentary or who were interviewed for the website were given the opportunity to proof and approve the scientific content prior to publication.
WP3: User Interaction and outcome analysis
WP3 was established to ensure that the user and sharing are always at the core of the project. The outputs from WP3 specifically contribute to the attainment of Project Objectives 5 and 8.
The specific objectives of WP3 were to:
• Identify user needs and facilitate user consultation to ensure a user-centered design process
• Build a sharing community
• Deliver project legacy document
• Deliver outcome analysis
Key Deliverables from WP3 were:
• User needs report
• Legacy Document
User needs report and user involvement
The ASAPS project engaged users from the outset in order to embed them in the creation of content and to ensure that the project outputs have impact and real relevance for the audience. The content of the films was determined in a top down fashion by the cognitive ageing experts at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and in a bottom up or grassroots approach by the users themselves. TCD have an in depth understanding of the challenge of cognitive ageing and demographic ageing. They also understand the nature of the research being carried out across Europe and the solutions that have already emerged. This expertise and broad perspective allowed them outline key information that the user needs to know in order to understand that they can benefit from research.
Cognitive ageing is a topic largely unfamiliar to the general public, so they may be unaware of the gap in their knowledge and consequently may not explicitly articulate specific needs with regard to the communication of cognitive ageing research. We engaged in online consultation with the general public, about their current knowledge and appetite for health science information on the topic of cognitive ageing. This survey allowed us to identify whether there was a need for the provision of cognitive ageing knowledge (e.g. were there misconceptions or knowledge gaps?).
We also asked the users to share information about themselves, their health worries and fears and their health information seeking behaviours. This data, when coupled with published literature, offered insight that helped us to establish the level at which to base our campaign and messaging. This ensured that the finer focus of the knowledge that we ultimately imparted not only has relevance but also has the capacity to induce empathy and to increase the likelihood that the information will resonate and be shared. By providing information that has relevance we increase the likelihood that it will have impact for the individual, possibly by encouraging a change in brain health behaviours.
The results of the online questionnaire and the literature survey indicated both a need and a demand for health science information. Europeans surveyed are specifically interested in new medical discoveries, research results, causes and treatments rather than research processes, the researchers or ethical issues. The ASAPS consortium already know that the European Commission want to increase the visibility of European health research but this report demonstrates that the European Commission’s objective will address a real need as identified by members of the general public.
Europeans surveyed trust scientific researchers working in a university and the medical professions above all when it comes to information on science or medical research and feel that the former are best qualified to explain scientific and technological developments. This, of course was good news for ASAPS and the Hello Brain campaign especially as the project is led by TCD who have an international reputation in ageing research. It also underscored the need for us to recruit scientists to speak directly about their research via our films. However while Europeans feel that scientists should communicate the message about science they feel that they are currently not very efficient at doing so.
Given that the main focus of the Hello Brain campaign is online, it is encouraging to discover that the majority of internet users use the internet for health purposes. Finally the results of our questionnaire and the literature survey confirm that the general public are hungry for knowledge about cognitive ageing, memory and dementia, and are eager to be informed by reliable scientists who can give them easily digestible facts coupled with practical advice. So it seems that ASAPS and its Hello Brain campaign is on the right track; there is a need and an audience, and we have the knowledge and the scientific understanding to provide the content and the know-how to translate the empirical information into understandable, practical information that has the capacity to change people’s lives.
In order to highlight the benefit of cognitive ageing research we needed to put it in context and help people to understand that it is important, essential and relevant to everyone. We needed to make people aware that cognitive ageing is a challenge. We also needed to explain why demographic ageing compounds this challenge and necessitates a solution. In addition we wanted to demonstrate that the European scientists are actively engaged in this endeavour and that the fruit of their labours can benefit the general public.
There is extensive evidence that users want more health information and involvement, with users actively seeking to become part of the solution and not just the problem. The user needs report (D3.1) was used by the partners over the lifespan of the project as a reference document and its content was taken into account, together with the outcome of ongoing consultation, during design, development and implementation stages of the project. The report discusses the key messages required to contextualise the scientific research for the user and informed the selection of the research projects highlighted by the campaign to ensure that they have relevance for our audience.
From the outset ASAPS promised to:
A. Provide context for the user. Explain the challenge. Why it is important. How it is relevant.
B. Communicate relevant science that seeks the solutions
C. Provide empirically grounded information that is of benefit to members of the general public
The following key messages were identified to form the backbone of the film campaign:
• Key Message - Cognitive Ageing is a Challenge - Research is Necessary
• Key Message - European Scientists are Seeking Solutions
• Key Message – Cognitive Decline is Not Inevitable
• Key Message – The Brain is Plastic
• Key Message – Cognitive Reserve
• Key Messages – Science has already provided some Solutions.
The user needs report described above was the first of many user consultations that occurred, ensuring that principles of user-centered design were be embedded across the lifespan of the project. Volunteers shared their views and played an active role in shaping the design of the campaign both online and in person at workshops and focus groups held in Ireland and Belgium. Volunteer attitudes to technology were assessed and opportunities were created for the exploration of website content and functionality. Users also provided input on the mobile application architecture and functional specifications. A sample user-group was also engaged in online beta testing for the campaign website and app and were encouraged to provide feedback and improvement suggestions. The same approach will be employed for the mobile site (using a different test group). Users response to visual stimuli was also considered and influenced the tone of the campaign. Adult users of all ages were involved in consultation and testing.
Over the lifespan of the project we have actively engaged with users via outreach activities, events and social media. In addition many users have volunteered as Hello Brain champions and ambassadors committed to sharing the campaign messages in their own communities.
Legacy
The core campaign print materials produced by the project are preserved and made freely available in the resources section of the Hello Brain website in English (www.hellobrain.eu/en/resources) French (www.hellobrain.eu/fr/resources) and German www.hellobrain.eu/de/resources in the form of downloadable documents. These pdf documents have also been appended as attachments to this final report. The resources section also contains detailed guidelines for printing and translation.
Textless versions of the films can be made available on request and the resources section of the website contains detailed guidelines for re-versioning of the films to other languages.
WP4: Campaign Development and Delivery
WP4 was established to develop a campaign identity, concept and strategy and to deliver the campaign. The outputs from WP4 specifically contribute to the attainment of Project Objectives 3 and 6.
The specific objectives of WP4 were to:
• Design an identity
• Develop the campaign concept and strategy
• Deliver a high-impact campaign package
Key deliverables for WP4 were
• Campaign Concept and Assets
• Campaign Strategy
• Campaign Events
• Print Materials
Campaign concept and assets
The campaign brief used to inform the development of the campaign concept referenced the following elements:
• The overall objectives of the project, including the key audiences
• The User Needs Report (WP3)
• The insights from consumer focus groups (WP3)
• The Scientific Context including key concepts and key messages (WP2)
• Desk Research on related health promotion campaigns
From a functional perspective the campaign concept needed to speak about the challenge in an engaging way, give people good news, encourage people to engage with science, encourage people to share what they learned and must have had the capacity to work on a variety of levels for a variety of audiences in multiple languages.
While a number of great concepts were developed the partners were unanimously in agreement that the Hello Brain concept provided the best basis for the overall campaign.
The Hello Brain idea is all about communication and dialogue. It uses one of the most commonly understood words across many languages and has the brain as a central motif. The concept
• Is friendly in tone
• Uses simple language
• Talks about the brain directly
• Encourages communication
• Is playful
The concept was assessed on a range of applications to test that it worked across multiple platforms and was designed to be flexible and work with the key messages of the campaign. Participants that had taken part in focus groups that informed the design were again invited to comment on the concept from their perspective. Respondents indicated that the overall idea and tone were relevant and engaging. In particular, they liked the idea that it featured “ordinary people – not experts” and that it was easy to understand.
The concept included a logo/icon, colour palette and photographic style as key elements that worked together to create the overall concept. Over the lifespan of the project the concept was further developed to include bespoke illustrations that are used across campaign materials (website, app, print etc.) giving the campaign a very distinctive and cohesive feel.
The ‘Hello Brain’ icon or symbol, consisting of a ‘speech bubble’ in the shape of a brain, immediately conveys our topic – we want to talk about the brain. ‘Hello’ is one of the most commonly understood words, whatever language people speak – we want people to start talking and thinking about the brain and to share new knowledge and experience they will gain by engaging with the science around the brain and cognitive ageing. The playful photography style, with the eyes always upwards, towards the brain, and cropped so that the top part of the head is foregrounded, continues the emphasis on the brain and is a flexible format so that people of different ages, gender and ethnicity can be included. The posters/brochures show a clean line, allowing for our key messages to be conveyed without clutter. The tone of voice is clear, accessible and straightforward. The ‘hello’ is always an invitation to start engaging in a dialogue.
The concept is:
• Simple
• People-centred
• Empathic and engaging
• Capable of being adapted by all of our stakeholders
• Able to work in different media/channels
It is flexible enough to act as an overall campaign platform that will facilitate all involved in producing communications for the project to:
• Talk about the problem in an engaging way
• Give people the good news
• Encourage people to engage with the science
• Share their experience and their learning
• Communicate cross-culturally
Campaign print materials have been appended to the final report as attachments. Campaign concept, assets, photography and illustrations can be viewed on the website www.hellobrain.eu and the Hello Brain Health App which can be downloaded for free from the App store (https://itunes.apple.com/ie/app/hello-brain-health/id911405368?mt=8&uo=4).
Campaign strategy
As described in the section on WP3 above, a number of key messages were identified that form the backbone of the campaign and the development of campaign outputs (films, app, website, and printed material).
• Cognitive ageing is a challenge - Research is necessary
• European scientists are seeking and providing solutions
• Cognitive decline is not an inevitable part of ageing
• The brain is plastic and can change even in later life
• Cognitive reserve offers protection against decline
• It is possible and important to be proactive about brain health
The next section gives an overview of the campaign idea, goals and how the key messages are communicated.
Main Campaign Idea:
Do one thing everyday to boost your brain health
“Brush your teeth – Buff your brain”
Members of the general public are able to take on the challenge via the Hello Brian website and the Hello Brain Health app.
The Hello Brain website (www.hellobrain.eu) provides empirically grounded information about the brain and brain health. It offers 5 Top Tips on how to take action. There are 5 colour coded brain-buff categories that are aligned with the 5 Top Tips. User’s progress is recorded via a personal success ‘Brainbow’. Those who take the challenge are expected not only to do something every day to boost their brain health but are encouraged to select from the different categories to ensure that the ‘Brainbow’ that they build is colourful like a rainbow.
5 Top Tips
1. Get physically active
2. Stay socially engaged
3. Challenge your brain
4. Manage stress, think young, and think positive
5. Adapt your lifestyle to protect your brain
Buff Categories
• Physical
• Social
• Mental
• Attitude
• Lifestyle
While the website is mainly about Awareness the App is about Action (People can also take the challenge via the website or use the print version)
The Action is sub-divided into:
Activity, Attitude and Lifestyle
Activity:
The first three buff categories are essentially all about activity but broken into three domains - physical, social and mental activities
Attitude:
Manage Stress, think young and think positive
Lifestyle:
A number of risk factors have been identified and these include lifestyle factors such as smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, obesity, and diet.
Sharing
A philosophy of sharing is at the core of the Hello Brain campaign strategy and users are encouraged to share films, website content and app activity. To supplement this, we used social media to raise awareness of the campaign and to build a community who share campaign content through their own networks. To maximise sharing, social media profiles updates were coordinated across the lifespan of the project and lead partner TCD have agreed to continue this activity beyond the project end date. Social bookmarklets feature on all web content pages to encourage users to share content among their social networks. Key ageing advocates working at national level across Europe have been recruited to act as ambassadors with a view to promoting the Hello Brain Campaign and key messages within their own networks.
Campaign Goals
Long-term Goal
To make more Europeans aware of the importance of brain health and how to take action to protect their brain health.
Short-Term Campaign Goals
Awareness Goals (website content)
Our online and media communications have communicated to Europeans that:
• Cognitive ageing is a challenge - Research is necessary
• European scientists are seeking and providing solutions
• Cognitive decline is not an inevitable part of ageing
• The brain is plastic and can change even in later life
• Cognitive reserve offers protection against decline
• It is possible and important to be proactive about brain health
Our print and online communications will have communicated to European primary care practitioners that:
• They can give their patients lifestyle advice to promote brain health
• Hello Brain is the place to send patients for trustworthy online information
Our online communications will have highlighted the work of EU researchers and provided them with a platform to:
• Promote their research
• Regularly connect with members of the general public online
Call to action Goals
We have demonstrated that an increased number of Europeans are actively engaged in protecting their own brain health.
This has been achieved through the creation and distribution of:
Key assets used in the campaign (films, website, and an app).
Films
Bite-sized animated films that communicate the campaign key messages and drive traffic to the website
Hello Brain website
The Hello Brain website has two main sections: BRAIN and HEALTH. Each has a number of sub-sections with content under specific topics, all of which reinforce the key messages of the campaign.
Hello Brain Health App
This app is designed to support users who take on the challenge to do one thing everyday that is good for their brain health.
Social Media Platforms
Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube accounts encourage users to engage with the Hello Brain app, website and videos and share this content. They are also encouraged to share their own experiences using these resources within their online communities.
Press Communiqués
Press releases were issued to promote the launch of Hello Brain.
Events
Three campaign events were held during the two-year project.
Campaign events
The ASAPS project is aimed at the high-impact promotion of European science and the promotion of active and healthy ageing, by means of delivering tangible products, activities and events. A series of three events (Launch, Interim and Final) were planned to create opportunities to maximise media coverage and produce public interest. These public relations milestones enabled the ASAPS project to promote both itself and the Hello Brain Campaign to a wider audience. Each event aimed to raise awareness of the importance of brain health and to increase the visibility of European brain research. The events facilitated the attainment of the overall project objectives and contributed to the strategic and coordinated dissemination of the key messages and information. The events not only represented a vehicle for disseminating key campaign messages, but also a means to start a conversation and begin building a community while also addressing the digital divide.
The Campaign Launch event included a Public Launch Event, and several subsidiary events. These events, described here, were designed to officially launch the Hello Brain Campaign and its collection of campaign assets (website, app, documentary, animated online short films, scientist interviews, social media platforms and print materials), and to communicate the key messages of the campaign to the media, Hello Brain Ambassadors, Hello Brain Champions and the general public.
Public Launch Event
The Public Launch event, aimed at Hello Brain Ambassadors, Champions, key stakeholders and members of the general public, took place on Monday 22nd September 2014 at the Stanley Quek Theatre, Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute (TBSI), Trinity College Dublin. This event was designed to launch the Hello Brain campaign, including the website (www.hellobrain.eu) the Hello Brain app for iOS and Android, the documentary film (The Age of the Brain), the short films, a major social media campaign and a variety of print materials.
27 ambassadors from all over Europe attended the event, including 13 Irish ambassadors (4 national and 9 regional ambassadors), 7 UK ambassadors and 7 other representative ambassadors from Belgium, France, Greece, German, Austria, Spain, and Slovakia.
Along with the AGE ambassadors, approximately 250 other guests attended the launch event including experts in the fields of neuroscience and ageing, ageing advocacy group members, medical professionals and members of the general public. Hello Brain packs containing print materials, DVDs and merchandise were distributed to all attendees.
The event was structured around five talks given by national and international experts in the fields of research, ageing, cognitive ageing and brain health:
Professor Vincent Cahill, the Dean and Vice President for Research and Professor of Computer Science and Trinity College Dublin.
Dr. Sabina Brennan, Coordinator of the ASAPS project, and Assistant Director of the NEIL project.
Professor Barbara Sahakian, Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology at the University of Cambridge and MRC/Wellcome Trust Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute.
Professor Barbara Demeneix, a CNRS innovation medalist, and Project Coordinator for the CRESCENDO and SWITCHBOX projects.
Helen Campbell, Vice President of Age Platform Europe and Manager of Education and Training at Age and Opportunity.
The event concluded with a lively question and answer session.
Additional events associated with the launch
On Tuesday, 23rd September 2014, several additional events took place for the Hello Brain Ambassadors who attended the Public Launch on Monday the 22nd. These events were designed to illustrate the Hello Brain Campaign’s five ‘Top Tips’ for brain health.
The following activities took place in Trinity College Dublin:
Get physically active
Ambassadors had the choice to attend a Zumba class, or a take Brisk Walk across Campus.
Stay socially engaged
A meet and greet was organised for all ambassadors at the Knowledge Exchange in TBSI, TCD. This event provided ambassadors with an opportunity introduce themselves to each other and refreshments were provided for guests.
Challenge your brain
Ambassadors received a guided tour of the Trinity College Campus, which included historical, scientific and artistic information. Ambassadors were also taken on a guided tour of the Book of Kells.
Manage Stress, Think Young, and Think Positive
Ambassadors attended a performance of ‘A Spoonful of Silence’, a piece described by one reviewer as “a lesson in mindfulness & intimate communication”. The audiences hold a warm cup in their hands and embark on a journey to the present moment.
Adapt your lifestyle to protect your brain
A healthy lunch was provided to the Ambassadors in the Lloyd Institute.
Interim Event
The Interim Event, aimed at the general public took place on May 8th 2013. The event, entitled ‘Your brain: The Secret to Healthy Ageing’ articulated the key messages of the Hello Brain Campaign, highlighted the importance of and need for brain research and gave a sneak preview of our first animated film. The event was structured around four talks given by national and international experts in the field of cognitive ageing and brain health: Dr Sabina Brennan, Prof Brian Lawlor, Prof Yakov Stern and Prof Ian Robertson. The presentations were followed by a question and answer session.
The event took place in Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute (TBSI) in Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. The event was oversubscribed and as the main venue was at full capacity, with over 300 people, we had to facilitate a further 100 waiting list guests by setting up a live video link in an overflow room within TBSI.
Dr Sabina Brennan, coordinator of the ASAPS project, delivered the keynote address. In the context of European Month of the Brain she spoke about the need to increase our awareness of the importance of brain research and brain health. She highlighted the fact that European scientists were seeking solutions and that there was a real need for improved funding for brain research and brain health. She explained that the aim of the event was to share scientific information with the audience in a way that was easy to understand and to start a conversation between scientists and the general public about brain research and brain health. Dr. Brennan set the tone of the event by dispensing with formal academic titles. She then went on to give an overview of cognitive ageing and the key findings from scientific research that form the key messages of the Hello Brain Campaign. Then each of the three speakers spoke in turn about a key aspect of the campaign from a clinical (Prof Lawlor, Risk and Protective Factors for Brain Health), scientific (Prof Stern, Cognitive reserve: from theory to intervention) and practical perspective(Prof Robertson, Seven Secrets to Brain Fitness).
Dr Sabina Brennan chaired the ensuing Question and Answer session, which was very lively and caused the event to extend well past the allotted time. People commented positively on the welcoming, relaxed approach and pointed out that dispensing with the use of formal academic titles allowed the audience to feel more comfortable and less intimidated about asking questions of the experts. Dr Brennan closed the event by giving the attendees a sneak preview of one of the Hello Brain short films. Feedback on the films at the event was very positive and conversation between scientists and the audience continued after the event.
Additional Events
We have also engaged in numerous additional activities and events to create further opportunities to facilitate pubic engagement, build a sense of community, encourage sharing of science and campaign messages and maximise media coverage and public interest. Our events and activities are always people focused and offer opportunity for conversation and community building.
The people powered Community Healthy Brain Challenge addressed the digital divide by adapting online materials for use offline. The challenge was designed to be empowering, and while the participants were given guidance from ASAPS coordinator Dr Sabina Brennan, it was not prescriptive, and the day-to-day nature of the 6-week challenge was shaped by the users who all kept diaries and were filmed pre- and post-challenge. This ‘people powered event’ was broadcast on RTE and ultimately reached an audience of 300,000 people, who were in turn given links to the information and directed to the Hello Brain website via the TV station website so that they could be empowered to take the challenge themselves.
Details of the additional events and activities are presented in the dissemination table that accompanies this report.
Final Event
The final event, described here, was designed to increase awareness of the ASAPS project and the Hello Brain Campaign amongst the general public and to communicate science in an accessible way. The event, which included ‘people participation’ activities, was designed to engage attendees with research content and motivate them to be more proactive about their brain health.
The final event, aimed at the general public, took place on the 26th of September 2014 as part of The Discover Research Dublin 2014 Trinity College Dublin in partnership with the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland, and in association with EU Researchers Night.
At Discover Research Dublin events, members of the public had access to over 50 fun, interactive, free events and activities where they can meet researchers, ask questions, participate and discover. The aim of this evening was to challenge public perception about researchers and to demonstrate the creativity and innovation that exists in research across all disciplines. The activities taking place at Discover Research Dublin were grouped under four broad themes: Body Parts, Creativity in Research, Meet the Researchers and Living Thought/Thinking Life.
Discover Research Dublin 2014 was held on the campus of Trinity College Dublin, with individual events taking place at different locations across campus.
• Dr. Sabina Brennan gave 2 talks about brain health entitled “Buff your Brain” at the Lloyd Institute (at 6pm and 7.30pm).
• There were 2 screenings of ‘The Age of the Brain’ documentary at the Lloyd Institute (at 6.30pm and 8pm).
• In addition, we set a Discover Research Hello Brain Challenge to raise awareness and encourage visitors to the visit a number of events across variety of disciplines over the evening. Hello Brain stands were placed at 7 locations around the campus where volunteers in Hello Brain t-shirts showed visitors the app, and encouraged them to take the Hello Brain Challenge at Discover Research.
Hello Brain Challenge at Discover Research Dublin
The competition, or ‘challenge’, was devised specifically for the final event in order to encourage participation across a variety of activities and disciplines and in order to demonstrate how learning and challenge are good for brain health. Participants taking the Hello Brain Challenge were given the opportunity to win a Kindle Fire HDX Tablet. To be in with a chance of winning this prize, participants had to do 3 things:
• Discover research
• Tell us what they learned
• Share their discoveries
Participants were provided with a ‘Challenge Sheet’ that they filled out over the course of the event.
Printed materials
As part of the overall communications strategy for the Hello Brain campaign, a range of printed materials were produced to ensure that the key messages of the Hello Brain campaign can be distributed through as many channels as possible. They complement the mainly digital Hello Brain campaign and are aimed at key audiences including the general public, GPs, Hello Brain Ambassadors, Hello Brain Champions, medical professionals, advocacy groups and media. In addition, a printed version of the Hello Brain App (in printed and PDF format) has also been produced to address the digital divide. This document was not part of the original deliverable but we feel it adds real value to the campaign materials.
The core print materials are available in English, French and German. The materials have been widely distributed across Europe by partners and Hello Brain Ambassadors and Champions.
WP5: Digital Platform design and delivery
WP5 was established to design, develop and deliver the websites and apps. The outputs from WP5 specifically contribute to the attainment of Project Objective 2
The specific objectives of WP5 were to:
• Deliver an engaging website
• Develop a range of digital tools (mobile website, apps, blog and managed email)
• Develop an accessible You tube channel
• Deliver detailed guidelines and training for content writing and curation
• Ensure that all digital content is curated
Key WP5 deliverables were
• Campaign Website
• App
Campaign website
The ASAPS project was inspired by two separate but equally important ideas: communications and science. The website is the digital platform that integrates these two ideas and provides the hub of the Hello Brain campaign.
The Hello Brain website is the key channel through which the ASAPS project aims to make more Europeans aware of the importance of brain health and how to take action to protect their brain health.
The website raises awareness by providing empirically grounded information about the brain and brain health and offers 5 top tips on how to take action.
The website communicates the campaign’s key messages (see WP3) and highlights the work of EU researchers.
Topics
There are two main sections on the website: BRAIN and HEALTH. Each has a number of sub-sections with content under specific topics. The home page sets out the purpose of the website, highlights the top line messages and explains the web structure and outlines the journey. Below are lists of topics that are described in articles in the BRAIN and HEALTH sections.
BRAIN (The Science)
How does your brain work?
• Brain Basics (fundamentals of brain function)
o Nifty Neurons
o Gluey Glia
o Clever Cortex
o Lobes divide up the labour
o Your three brains
o The brains outside your brain
• Your Brain Changes with Age (cognitive decline is not inevitable)
o An early head start- your brain in childhood
o The teenage brain- it explains a lot
o Adults can grow neurons too!
o DEVELAGE- the molecular view of aging
• Plastic Fantastic (explains brain plasticity: how the brain can be changed throughout life)
o Exercise- use it or lose it
o Plasticise: Boosting Plasticity
• The Reserve Team (explains cognitive reserve- how we can build up brain reserve as we age)
o Let’s think…about cognitive function
o My, how well your cognitive function has aged!
o The reserve team
• Memory: Remembrance of things past (how memory works)
o Rewinding the clock
o Fixing a hole in your memory
o When are memory lapses serious?
• Attention- What memories are made of (the role of attention in memory)
o Turning off autopilot
o Attention first, then add meaning
o Tuning out the clutter
o Pay attention to shaping your brain
• A look to the future (the future of brain health)
o Tackling fire in the brain
o Getting your brain into shape
HEALTH (The Solutions)
How do I keep my brain healthy?
• What can I do to keep my brain healthy? (advice for brain health)
o Get physically active
o Stay socially engaged
o Challenge your brain
o Change your attitude: manage stress think young, think positive
o Adapt your lifestyle to protect your brain
• Decline is not inevitable (staying sharp as you age)
o Keep sharp and get older
o Okinawa & Sardinia- addresses for a long and healthy life
o The agers who inspire
• Neuroplasticity (how people can shape their brain with their actions)
o Sculpt yourself a happy brain
o Tongue sees
o The woman who built herself a better brain
o Rats’ whiskers
• Cognitive Reserve- Keeping resilience in mind (advice on building cognitive reserve)
o Pick up a book, not a cigarette
o Don’t be reserved in your social life
o Flex the brain to delay memory loss
The website also hosts:
• Hello Brain Animated Films
• Hello Brain Interviews with Scientists
• FreeDem Films
• ASAPS Documentary (TV hour) – ‘The Age of the Brain’
A third key section of the website is dedicated to research.
RESEARCH
Brain Research: New Insights for Better Health
The aim of the research section of the website is not only to increase visibility of EU funded research but also to start a conversation between researchers and the general public.
The interviews take two forms:
Research Projects: These articles focus mainly on the research projects, explaining their importance, relevance, methods and outcomes.
• Reading DNA to stop Alzheimer’s
• Healing age-related hearing loss
• Searching for Alzheimer’s treatments
• Find out about memory loss
• Testing 3 steps to better health
• Nilvad: Can an old drug learn a new trick to help Alzheimer’s?
• Plasticise: Boosting Brain plasticity
• DEVELAGE- the molecular view of aging
• The Human Brain project: A virtual brain?
• CompanionAble: a robotic companion for brain health
• Gene hunt is on
• Play to win a younger brain
• Institutionalisation for dementia- no one-size-fits-all for Europe
• NeuroSKILL: Towards a clearer picture of the brain in Dementia
• I, Robocare- robotic home help
• TV for fitness and brains
• Good fat: can it build a healthier brain and delay dementia?
• Positive thinking for your brain
• Video recording the brain at work
• Blocking neurons may help stroke victims
• Smart tools for healthy brains
Interviews: these take the form of ‘5 minutes with...’ interviews. The aim of these articles is to put a more human face on the researcher. They focus on how the researcher got into their field of interest, the focus of their work and their hopes for the future of research.
• Five minutes with Dr. Shahaf Peleg
• Five minutes with J. Arturo Garcia-Horsman
• Five minutes with Professor Brian Lawlor
• Five minutes with Prof Ian H Robertson
• Five minutes with Prof Yaakov Stern
• Five minutes with Professor Seth Grant
• Five minutes with Prof Fiona Newell
• Five minutes with Prof Gabriele Meyer
• Five minutes with Dr. Elizabeth Kehoe
• Five minutes with Dr. Renxi Qiu
• Prof Vittorio Gallese: discoverer of mirror neurons
• Five minutes with Prof Tobias Hartmann
• Five minutes with Dr Kate Irving
Translation and localization of web content
All of the web content was professionally translated and localised to German and French, the second and third most commonly spoken languages of the EU. Careful consideration was given to localising content to ensure that the content remained engaging and that meaning was preserved and/or adapted to take account of cultural differences. Before adding to the website, all translated content was approved by native speakers who focused on quality of translation and localisation. Users have the option on every page of the website to view the content in English, French or German.
The website build was adapted to ensure that it automatically recognises the country from which the user is accessing, and provides content in this language. Website graphics were adapted to fit terms in French/German that were different lengths to their English counterparts.
Accessibility and Usability
Accessibility and usability are key tenets of the ASAPS campaign. Our consortium has a social responsibility to provide information that is accessible to all audiences- including those with disabilities, older users who potentially have age-related impairments, and those accessing the website from a range of devices (including mobile devices). We believe in the importance of equal access to information, and as the web is increasingly used for the provision of information, it is crucial that our website be highly accessible.
In order to prioritise usability and accessibility we developed usability, accessibility and compliance guidelines. The campaign website was designed in CSS and HTML5. Consistent typography was used throughout user interfaces, using a sans-serif font for optimum readability. Content was created using clear, uncomplicated language. Images and videos were used throughout the website to communicate information in the most effective way. We added ALT text descriptions for all images. Captions were created for all videos appearing on the website.
The website was built using a design which incorporates a ‘flexible layout’ that accommodates diverse display environments to enable accurate viewing on various browser software, versions, VDU screens and hardware capability and will adapt to different user requirements. To ensure that the website was accessible across multiple browsers and platforms, testing was carried out using Browserstack, an online tool that allows you to view your site across a vast range of browsers and operating services. We incorporated the feedback reports into our design process to ensure that the website was widely accessible.
A dedicated mobile version of the website was also developed.
App
The Hello Brain Challenge invites members of the general public to do one thing everyday that is good for their brain health. The Hello Brain Health App supports those taking the challenge by offering suggestions for daily activities that promote brain health.
Technical development
The Hello Brain mobile app is a hybrid HTML5-based app that supports iOS, Android and desktop browser platforms. The rationale behind adopting a hybrid app approach was to create a consistent user experience that could be accessed across a variety of devices without the need to develop multiple native applications.
The app architecture consists of a web-server backend developed in Groovy and Grails, and dedicated iOS and Android shell applications. The Grails application runs on the TomCat server and has been optimised for multiple concurrent users. The shell applications each contain an embedded webview the loads a HTML5 backend website over a secure HTTPS connection.
The content rendered in the web views uses responsive CSS, jQuery, and D3.js to create a touch friendly interactive experience that uses common app conventions. The responsive nature of the application means that it can adapt to work on various device sizes and it has been specifically designed to cater for both common phone and tablet resolutions. The performance of the app has been optimised using resource bundling, browser caching, gzip compression, and persistent cookies to provide a responsive near-native experience.
Content and Design
Content
The Hello Brain website raises awareness about the importance of brain health and brain research by providing easy-to-understand information about the brain, brain health and brain research. The Hello Brain Campaign is a call to action, asking members of the public to use this information to do one thing everyday that is good for their brain health.
In addition to the Campaign key messages identified following user consultation at the start of the project we compiled empirically grounded Top Tips to empower people to be more proactive about their brain health.
• Get physically active
• Stay socially engaged
• Challenge your brain
• Manage stress, think young, think positive
• Adapt your lifestyle to protect your brain.
This key content has been reframed, supplemented and edited for presentation via the mobile App. Users of the App receive daily suggestions of brain healthy activities (Brain Buffs), together with some information about how the activity may protect brain health. Each daily suggestion (Brain Buff) also has a ‘read more’ button for further information about the underlying scientific concept. Each of the Brain Buffs were carefully written, grounded in science and approved by members of the Scientific Advisory Board.
Some Brain Buffs have links out to videos or to social media to encourage social engagement. Within the app there is also a designated Top Tips for Brain Health section with more detailed information about each specific Top Tip Category (Physical, Social, Mental, Attitude and Lifestyle). The App also contains advice on how to exercise safely, staying hydrated and alcohol consumption. Tone of voice is consistent across all campaign materials. The Privacy Policy is also accessible from within the App.
Design
The App design incorporates a rich user experience that was informed by the initial user-needs assessment and a number of focus groups. Across the website, Apps and printed materials there is consistency in design, illustration, colour and fonts.
1 User experience and user journey
User experience and user journey
The App was developed in an iterative fashion with user experience evaluation, user consultation, user feedback and alpha and beta testing informing the process and evolution of the app user interface and overall design. Room to make design alterations in order to incorporate user suggestions was built into the process. With this app it was felt that simplicity was key.
Landing page
The app landing page is branded using the Hello Brain Logo and a Hello Brain Head that changes with each log in. In addition to the functional language and ‘Get Started’ buttons there is a banner with a direct call to action – ‘Say Hello to Brain Health’ which we believe also inherently explains the name of the app.
Instructions
Once the users click the ‘Get Started’ button they are presented with a single instruction page that explains the Hello Brain Challenge. This screen is presented each time the user logs in and can also be accessed from the burger menu within the App.
After registration or log in the user is presented with a screen that explains the App icons and overlays the Home page. This overlay serves as a welcome screen for new users. It not only introduces the icons, but also gives inexperienced users clear direction.
Homepage/Brainbow
The App offers an activity suggestion to the user each day from one of five categories each with a designated colour. Progress is recorded in a colourful five-bar graph which we call a Brainbow. Users are encouraged to balance activities in order to build a colour balanced brainbow over 100 days. The Brainbow serves as a more personal tool or interface for the user to learn about their progress through the Hello Brain Experience. It is designed to encourage and give users a way of quickly understanding their personal progress with Hello Brain.
Empty columns bounce intermittently, in a way that grabs attention and creates curiosity. When touched the bar fills to the right, revealing the category group and description together with a note of % progress towards goal.
Brain Buffs
Brain Buff pages are colour coded by activity. In additon to the 'call to action' and description there are a variety of links dependant on the Buff category.
• Buff Categories
• Physical
• Social
• Mental
• Attitude
• Lifestyle
Once the user has completed the suggested Brain Buff they click ‘done’. The user also has the option to do their own brain healthy activity or get another auto suggestion by clicking ‘Try Another’.
Achievements
Once a Buff has been completed the user is taken to a ‘Well done’ screen where they have the option to share their achievement on social media. Over the course of the 100 day challenge they receive awards when certain milestones are reached. In addition they can review their activity history via a Timeline.
Translation and Localisation
The App content was professionally translated and localised to German and French, the second and third most commonly spoken languages of the EU. App graphics were adapted to fit terms in French/German that were different lengths to their English counterparts. Careful consideration was given to localising content to ensure that the content remained engaging and that meaning was preserved and/or adapted to take account of cultural differences. Before adding to the app, all translated content was approved by native speakers who focused on quality of translation and localisation. Users have the option when they first open the App to view the content in English, French or German. Users also have the option to change their language preference by selecting ‘Your Account Details’ from the drop-down menu.
The App description, screenshots and keywords appearing on the iOS App Store and the Android Google Play Store were also localised and translated, as was the welcome email that users receive on sign up.
Usability and Accessibility
Accessibility and usability are key tenets of the ASAPS campaign. Our consortium has a social responsibility to provide information that is accessible to all audiences- including those with disabilities, older users who potentially have age-related impairments, and those accessing the app from a range of mobile devices.
In order to make the Hello Brain Health App more accessible, we built in a text-enlarger that makes the text easier to read. Consistent typography was used throughout user interfaces, using a sans-serif font for optimum readability. Content was created using clear, uncomplicated language. Images are used throughout the app to communicate information in the most effective way.
WP6: Film Production
WP6 was established to deliver a package of high-impact factual films. The outputs from WP6 specifically contribute to the attainment of Project Objective 1.
The key objectives of WP6 were to:
• Develop the factual content (narrative, documentary, interview and actual) and visual style (graphics, footage, archive) for the film package.
• Deliver a film package designed to work on multiple platforms, in multiple languages and in conjunction with website, apps and publicity campaigns.
• Maximise the impact of messages, target audience figures, appreciation and publicity for the project.
Key deliverables were:
• 6 animated films
• A documentary
A package of lightly-branded films that support the aims of the Hello Brain campaign were produced. A balance between the campaign requirements and the need to focus on EU-funded research with the requirement for content that informs, entertains and appeals to a wide audience was sought. Six short multi-lingual graphic films were produced as part of the wider campaign, that were designed to:
a) carry the six key messages of the campaign across multiple channels and
b) help to draw an audience onto the Hello Brain website
The short graphic films are seeded on youtube and vimeo and are also be embedded on the Hello Brain website. The films adopt a high-quality format with a proven track record. They have been released across multiple channels as part of the wider Hello Brain health awareness campaign and have also been used as additional content as part of outreach activities and when targeting news websites and other platforms. They are sharable and end with a hook to bring the public back to the website. The films have also been embedded on other channels with existing followers with a view to directing traffic towards the Hello Brain website. The graphic shorts have been placed as accompanying material to news stories generated by the campaign. All films were produced in English, French and German.
Short graphic films
• What makes your brain work?
• Will I lose my memory when I get old?
• How can I keep my brain sharp?
• Is exercise good for my brain?
• Is it too late to follow my childhood dreams?
• What will your life look like in 50 years?
The Hello Brain campaign was launched on 22nd September 2014. At the time of writing (19 November 2014) the films have been viewed in excess of 110,000 times.
In addition, we produced 6 additional filmed interviews with key scientists who explained key campaign messages in short jargon-free interviews.
• What is neuroplasticity and why is it important?
• Can my leisure activities protect my cognitive function?
• Can I change my brain?
• Challenge, change and learning
• The upsides of ageing
• Retirement, memory and usefulness.
A long form multi-lingual documentary, The Age of the Brain, was also produced that explores the science of cognitive ageing through the campaign messages, and highlights six EU funded research projects currently addressing the challenge. The process used to select the projects featured in the documentary and on the website is detailed under Objective 4 below. While we are currently marketing the documentary for TV broadcast it will ultimately be made available to the general public through the Hello Brain website. A special screening of the documentary was hosted during European Discover Research night in 2014. DVD copies of documentary and short films have also been distributed to key stakeholders across Europe.
Potential Impact:
Potential Impact
ASAPS is a coordination action that received funding under the Seventh Framework Programme primarily to increase the societal impact of EU funded research. The ASAPS project directly addresses the project call (HEALTH – 2012 – 4.1-4) to communicate the benefits of European research to the general public while also contributing to the broader FP7 Cooperation Health Programme objective to improve the health of European citizens through the promotion of active and healthy ageing.
Ageing is an issue of global importance and ever increasing relevance that raises considerable challenges and concerns. European research has risen to the challenge by providing answers to some problems and contributing to an increase in awareness on some key age-related issues that affect our ageing societies. Nevertheless, European ageing research remains highly fragmented mainly as a consequence of the challenges associated with coordinating both efforts and results across Europe. The Europe 2020 strategy identified demographic ageing as both a challenge and an opportunity and has prioritized the topic in flagship initiatives including ‘Innovation Union’ and ‘A digital agenda for Europe’, reaffirming the need for concrete action. Although the EC is committed to promoting open access to the results of publicly funded research, the benefits are often not communicated appropriately to potential end-users, which could result in reluctance in accepting innovative interventions and new technologies which in turn blocks the research itself. The ASAPS project directly addresses this problem, contributes to the coordination of high-quality research and increases the societal impact of research through a number of value adding activities that transform the raw material of research into tangible outputs including:
• Website
• A series of films
• Apps (smartphone, web and print)
• Print materials
• Events
• Press Communiqués
Through the delivery of these tangible outputs ASAPS has:
• Increased visibility of EU funded research
• Increased awareness of the challenge of cognitive ageing and the need for research
• Increased awareness that European researchers are actively seeking solutions
• Increased awareness of the benefits of brain research
• Increased awareness that cognitive decline is not an inevitable part of normal ageing
• Increased awareness that the brain is plastic and can change even in later life
• Increased awareness that cognitive reserve offers protection against decline
• Increased awareness that it is both possible and important to be proactive about brain health
• Increased awareness among primary care practitioners that they can give patients lifestyle advice to promote brain health and that Hello Brain is a place to send patients for trustworthy information about brain health
• Highlighted the work of EU researchers and provided them with a platform to promote their research and connect directly with the general public online
• Increased the number of people directly engaged in protecting their own brain health
Dissemination activities
The ASAPS project engaged in extensive dissemination activities (*at time of submission we encountered a problem and were unable to input some of our activities to the dissemination table - so the table only contains 63 of the 97 dissemination activities - the remaining 34 activities are included as an attachment) - The campaign was launched in the final month of the project and so the figures presented below and in the various reports attached to the final report refer mainly to the period between the project end (September 2014) and the writing of this final report (November 2014).
Website
The websites (English, French and German) provide easy-to-understand information about the brain, brain health and brain research. Since the project ended we have had almost 25,000 sessions. The majority of visitors were aged over 45 (55.8%) with the largest percentage of visitors falling into the 65+ category (23%). The site is being used by both male and female users, with a majority of female users (61.2%). Website users were primarily accessing Hello Brain from within Europe (over 70%), however people from all over the world have accessed the Hello Brain website. In the short time since the launch the website has had a good percentage of new visitors (over 65%), while also maintaing returning to the website (around 35%).
Apps
The Hello Brain Health App (available in English, French and German) provides suggestions and support to people while they undertake the Hello Brain Challenge to do one thing every day that is good for their brain health. Almost 6,000 people have downloaded the app since it was launched at the end of the ASAPS project. To facilitate those without a smart phone we also created a web version of the App and at time of writing approximately 1,000 people use this version of the App. The majority of app users are aged over 55, totalling over 47% of users (note that figures below do not reflect actual totals as Google removed some data to prevent the identification of individuals). The next largest group of users are aged 45-54 (19%), followed by 25-34 year olds (17.41%). The gender breakdown indicates that just under two-thirds of users are female (65.43%).
Films
The short films specifically made for the project have attracted over 110,000 views at the time of writing.
Print Materials
Print materials (leaflets, posters and paper version of the app) produced by the project have been and continue to be disseminated across Europe at various conferences, talks, workshops and other events. At time of writing over 70,000 flyers and leaflets have been disseminated. Some of these materials have been distributed directly to the general public and to primary care practitioners while others have been distributed to carefully selected volunteers working at national level across Europe who will in turn distribute the materials through their own networks and channels. In addition, some schools in Ireland have distributed campaign materials to their pupils. Also, the Dublin City Libraries are stocking and promoting the Hello Brain Campaign materials.
Events
Over the lifespan of the project we hosted a series of events (talks, conferences, workshops, screenings, exhibitions and challenges) aimed at the general public, the research community and other stakeholders. All events were well attended with approx. 300 attending the launch event and 400 the interim event.
Oral Presentations
The project coordinator was invited to make more than 10 oral presentations over the 24-month lifespan of the project. Most presentations were to the general public and involved relaying the key campaign messages and dissemination of campaign materials. In addition, the project coordinator also spoke to scientific audiences about the project and about the importance of science communication.
Press and Media coverage
Press communiqués were issued to announce the project funding in the first quarter of the project and also to announce the launch of the campaign in the final month of the project. We also hosted a media briefing to coincide with the launch to the general public and key stakeholders. The campaign attracted considerable attention in Ireland where the launch was held. A media book is attached to the report but highlights include:
• The Irish Times – feature article in the health supplement (readership 301,000)
• The Irish Examiner (223,000)
• Irish Medical News (7400)
• Sunday Business Post (118,000)
Online
• The Medical Independent
• IrishHealth.com (140,000)
• IrishTimes.com (136,000)
• Dementia Today (5500)
• Medical News Today (9,000,000)
Radio
• Marian Finnucane Show – Interview with Coordinator (audience 350,000)
• Morning Ireland – Interview with Coordinator (audience 450,000)
Television
In addition, the project coordinator was approached by RTE, Ireland’s national broadcaster to set a community challenge involving Hello Brain materials to a group of older adults for their on ‘Doctors on Call a TV show. This TV programme was broadcast on RTE in December 2013 and ultimately reached an audience of 300,000 people, who were in turn given links to the information and directed to the Hello Brain website via the TV station website so that they could be empowered to take the challenge themselves. The programme was repeated again in June 2014.
Planned Dissemination Activities
The Project coordinators, Trinity College Dublin, through its NEIL Programme have agreed to continue hosting the websites, the App and Social media at least until the end of 2016 and will continue to engage in dissemination activities for the foreseeable future. In addition, we have identified 30 advocates working in the ageing sphere who have volunteered to act as Hello Brain Ambassadors. They will promote the Hello Brain campaign and materials through their own networks across Europe. We have also identified a number of Hello Brain Champions who have agreed to promote Hello Brain at local community level.
Campaign materials are available for download from the resources section of the website. We extend the reach of the project by making these materials freely available and by providing instructions on how to translate the materials to other languages via our various legacy documents. At the time of writing, one ambassador has already translated the materials into Spanish, while another is actively working on translating into Greek and still another is actively seeking funding to have the materials translated into Slovakian.
In addition, we are partnering with local libraries to arrange a series of Hello Brain workshops and talks for 2015.
List of Websites:
www.hellobrain.eu
hellobrain@tcd.ie