EU Year of Active Ageing
Peter Winlev-Jensen (pictured, left) believes the Year of Active Ageing will highlight the need for change
The year to put active ageing in the limelight
research that we hope will be translated into local innovation. In Europe the innovation structures are very dispersed, and we have a big problem in that even the big countries cannot sustain their innovation capacity and they need to go outside. So it’s a win win situation where, from the countries’ perspective, they can connect their national innovation communities at European level and not only get access to knowledge generated elsewhere but also get access to markets, networks and connections, and from a European perspective it makes it possible for us to reach out to those local actors, 40 per cent of which are SMEs. So it was really designed to connect those people up and that’s been the big success. But obviously now, we still need to get the proof that it can deliver and make impact, and I think that’s where we are now focusing the discussion. The European Innovation Partnership
Commissioner, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn. In effect, this is a joint effort from the demand and supply side of innovation to enable us to accelerate the uptake of innovation much faster and remove barriers. But it also illustrates the link between
societal changes and competitiveness. Already now, and more so in the future, Europe needs to create new areas of growth and new jobs, but we cannot save ourselves simply out of this competitiveness as we need to create a basis for the income that will allow us to have a good sustainable social system as well as good and sustainable care system. Another reason we will be working
together is to get the maximum effect from the investment of public money, including public procurement and
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research and innovation investments. This is also the expression of a new strategy and we hope that this will be reflected in how the Member States work. We want to work in public private partnerships and engage industry and all the stakeholders and that’s the way forward as we see it.
Do you think the AAL JP is a good example of that in action and are you optimistic in terms of the future when it comes to programmes like this?
The AAL JP was created as a huge innovation and it was the first time we created a programme from scratch involving Member States, who invest together with the Commission, targeting an area with such a huge value to our society, where small companies address big problems and get access to good
is one of the major instruments we now have to help create that market, but we still have to work on removing the barriers that will allow us to grow. The problem we have in Europe and also in the global context, is that unless we create favourable conditions where projects and companies can grow and can generate return on the investment, we will not get the investment and that will probably mean companies will go elsewhere. People and capital are now moving globally, so we need to create an environment in Europe that will be favourable for people to invest energy, for investors to come here, and in my view the EIP programme is one big effort across Europe to do that.
If there’s one lesson you’ve taken from this Forum this year, what is it?
It shows that things are moving; we are moving from technology-driven approaches to systems that really are useful and are appropriated by the users. They are AAL-solutions that solve problems and have realistic ways of doing useful things so people are going to invest in them. I think that’s a positive evolution, and we will support it. This programme for us is a really
important component of the Year of Active Ageing because it is a big joint effort by member states to address big societal challenges. We see it as a cornerstone that we need to evolve and improve, but it’s a good beginning.
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