About the D-Care project in a nutshell

D-CARE – Developing, piloting and validating smart care models in Danube region for supporting social innovation, improving competences and entrepreneurship.

Demographic and economic trends have been changing to an unfavourable direction in the countries of the Danube region. Younge people sought better work opportunities in cities, or other countries, leaving the elderly alone in rural and urban areas. The socio-medical care of elders is operating with growing public costs, and shortage of qualified medical personnel. In the grip of such challenges, combining digital solutions, with social innovations in developing smart care technologies, is a viable solution for new social and healthcare services. D-CARE project will exactly do this.

The project has three main objectives: (1) it will establish a quadruple helix multi-stakeholder groups, and inclusively develop 8 Smart Care Labs in 8 regions, that will launch an Innovation Program Call for companies. The participating companies will propose innovative technologies and solutions for developing smart care services and models. These solutions will be tested with end-users, and the best one will be implemented in each pilot region. The second objective (2) is to create an innovate learning environment, where learning tools, educational materials and training programs will be created to develop the knowledge and skill of elderly caregivers and the elderly. The third objective is to (3) develop a policy tools and programs (Transnational Learning Policy Center) for local and regional authorities, in supporting the implementation process of elders smart care services and models.

DBH InnoHub will design and implement the Innovation Program Call for companies, together with German innovation agency Grunderschiff UG & Co. KG.