EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
A HELPING HAND FOR INNOVATION
IWT, the innovation agency of the Flemish Government, was one of the main sponsors of the AAL Forum this year, and has been heavily involved in its activities since its inception. Offering financial support, advice and networking opportunities to research centres and entrepreneurs, it has helped to develop several initiatives to drive innovation in the ageing space. Veerle Lories was representing IWT at this year’s forum to promote its work and meet likeminded people from across Europe to discuss the best ways to improve penetration and adoption of new solutions
Can you explain a bit more about your involvement within AAL and the ageing space? IWT is the innovation agency of the Flemish Government. It is a member of AAL and has been closely involved in AAL activities since its inception. As a funding agency, IWT helps companies
and research centres to innovate and implement research and development projects. We offer them financial support, advice and a network of potential partners in Flanders and abroad. We also support the Flemish Government in its innovation policy. Ageing is seen as one of the major societal challenges to be tackled and as a consequence new initiatives such as Flanders’ Care and the Care Living Labs have been developed. They are the flagships of the challenge-driven innovation policy of recent years.
What do you look for when you invest in something - both in terms of the idea and the people involved? In our funding schemes priority is given to projects with a higher risk and a greater expected impact in Flanders on an economic and societal level. Any enterprise — be it an SME, the Flemish branch of a multinational company, or a social profit sector organisation — may request funding. The only condition is that the enterprise should have the capacity to exploit the result to a sufficient extent and hence create enough impact in the form of employment and other economic and societal
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returns. We generally prefer collaborative initiatives, bringing together research partners, enterprises and societal stakeholders.
Stephen Johnston in a session earlier at the Forum said unless a product has traction it doesn’t warrant investment. Would you agree with that? We fully agree with this statement. This is the reason why IWT is continuously looking for substantial potential return and added value in the projects that are submitted to us for funding. With the funding we are trying to make up for the knowledge risks that the innovators are taking.
Veerle Lories
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