NET4Age-Friendly is at full speed and just launched its website at https://www.net4age.eu.
Our COST Action International Interdisciplinary Network on Smart Healthy Age-friendly Environments has formal representatives of 41 countries, but already gathers a network of 260 researchers from 50 countries around the world, to advance on the work of the Stakeholders Network on SHAFE.
The Action started in end October 2020 and in the last 3 months we created and organised our Working Groups, the visual identity, social media and website and we are now ready to publish our Call to Short-term scientific missions (STSM) and Inclusiveness Target Countries (ITC).
You can now also follow us on our social media channels: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Why are we discussing Smart Healthy Age-Friendly environments?
Carina Dantas, Action Chair reports that “this action aims to promote Smart Healthy Age-Friendly Environments, to overcome fragmentation and several critical gaps that still exist, both at the conceptual and pragmatic levels of innovation, to address European research and policy challenges. The current Covid-19 pandemic brings social and economic consequences that will threaten the quality of life of the most vulnerable and, in this sense, NET4Age-Friendly can bring innovative proposals that tackle it and will be essential to keep these concerns at the top of the political agenda.”
Willeke van Staalduinen, Action Vice-Chair, is happy that “so many different researchers from East, West, North and South will cooperate in NET4Age-Friendly to establish and maintain local and regional ecosystems to showcase the best implementation of Smart Healthy Age-Friendly Environments. These local and regional initiatives will inspire many more areas in connected countries.”
NET4Age-Friendly IN A NUTSHELL
The main approach of NET4Age-Friendly is the establishment of local or regional ecosystems in each country involved, to work on health and well-being in an age-friendly digital world, all combined in an inclusive environment. These ecosystems include citizens, public authorities, businesses/NGOs and researchers. They will be supported by four thematic working groups:
- User-centred inclusive design;
- Integrated health and well-being pathways;
- Digital solutions and large-scale sustainable implementation;
- Policy development, funding forecast and cost-benefit evaluations
The outcomes of the thematic working groups will be integrated through a fifth group in a single reference framework, which will be the main result of the project.
The Call for STSM and ITC Grants is open!
To explore the development of eHealth solutions in Croatia and The Netherlands, the age-friendly environments policies in Bilbao or Brussels, adapted housing in Warsaw and Germany. Big and tiny data handling in Greece, North Macedonia or Portugal.
These are examples of SHORT TERM SCIENTIFIC MISSIONS, that individuals can undertake within the frame of the Action. STSMs shall have a minimum duration of 5 calendar days that includes travel.
ITC CONFERENCE GRANTS are aimed at supporting early career investigators and PhD students from participating Inclusiveness Target Countries to attend international science and technology related conferences, events or activities on the topic of the NET4Age-Friendly Action that are not organized by the COST Action.
For more information and applications, go to https://www.net4age.eu/grants
About COST
COST European Cooperation in Science and Technology funds collaborative transnational activities under a network system dedicated to scientific collaboration with open access and bottom-up, in all scientific and technological domains. Funding is provided under an agreement between the COST Action Association and the European Union through the Horizon 2020 programme and is particularly concerned with the empowerment of underrepresented researchers, namely women researchers, at the beginning of their careers, or from peripheral countries.