Delayed calls of emergency medical services (e.g. in case of physical or mental disorders resulting from strokes or falls) lead to increased hospitalisation and movement of elderly people into nursing homes. This decreases their quality of life unnecessarily and causes considerable costs. Due to demographical changes in Europe, this situation is expected to get worse in the future.This problem is addressed in EMERGE by supporting elderly people with innovative emergency monitoring and prevention. Humans are bio-psycho-social beings, whose character is to follow typical behaviour. Especially elderly people have this character. The innovation is to algorithm this behaviour by a holistic approach in order to detect deviations from typical behaviour patterns and to reason on acute disorders in their health condition in case of strokes, falls or similar emergencies. The approach is to use ambient and unobtrusive sensors to monitor activity, location, and vital data. Daily rou-tine is tracked in order to detect abnormalities and to create early indicators for potentially arising emergencies. EMERGE engineers a prototypical solution that treats emergencies with stepwise assistance. First, it provides early proactive assistance to the elderly himself. Next, it integrates friends, family, or caregivers. In case of an emergency that cannot be handled in the first two steps, an integrated emergency medical service (EMS) is called and informed about the case and the personal situation of the affected person. The integrated EMS can resolve the situation through medical care, telemedicine counselling, activation of social services, or sending a rescue team. The impact of the developed prototypical solution on quality of life will be measured in an Assisted Living Laboratory and in a multinational site evaluation. It is expected, that EMERGE will help elderly people to live a safer, self-determined life and to stay longer in their preferred environment.