Consortium

We believe in making and shaping a competitive digital Europe that is inclusive, fair and sustainable and aim at global impact through European innovation fuelled by entrepreneurial talent and digital technology.

We embody the future of innovation by mobilizing a pan-European multi-stakeholder open-innovation ecosystem of top European corporations, SMEs, startups, universities and research institutes, in which students, researchers, engineers, business developers and investors address the technology, talent, skills, business and capital needs of digital entrepreneurship.

We build the next generation of digital ventures, digital products and services, and breed digital entrepreneurial talent, helping business and entrepreneurs to be at the frontier of digital innovation by providing them with technology, talent, and growth support.

Region Zealand is one of five regions in Denmark. Comprising 17 municipalities, the Region encompasses an area of 7,273 square kilometers with a population of 821,000 citizens and an annual budget of app. 21 billion DKK.   

Region Zealand performs two main tasks: an operational enterprise in the area of health care and social affairs (including six regional hospitals) and regional development initiatives. Region Zealand's vision is to create the best framework for sustainable growth and quality of life for its citizens.   

The Region is responsible for providing Health care services to citizens - both specialized health care and general practice. Citizens have the right to free choice of hospital and an extended free choice of hospital in Denmark meaning that the Danish regions finance treatment of their own citizens in other regions’ hospitals. Regions are also partners in agreements with private hospitals regarding treatment of the regions' citizens. 

The project management of UNITE is located at the Regional Health Innovation department that is integrated with FIERS (life Science Innovation).  

FIERS is the leading force of innovation I Region Zealand and refers directly to the management of Region Zealand University Hospital. FIERS works actively with three overall areas: 1) Innovation partnerships with the industry, municipalities, G.P’s and other healthcare stakeholders, 2) Living Lab, societal and user driven welfare innovation, 3) Health innovation with start-ups.  

In all of FIERS’ work focus is on putting the patient first and create value for the healthcare professionals by building bridge between public – and private stakeholders national and international, e.g. by building the optimal frameworks for financing, development and testing new innovative solutions. In short FIERS is the catalysator for innovative collaborations in Region Zealand in the field of regions, municipalities, general practice and private stakeholders. 

Lombardy is one of the hotspots of digital and health innovation in Europe. It is the top Region in Italy for EU and Private investments. It leads the healthcare policies in Italy and also in Europe. Roughly 25% of Italian innovative start-ups and SMEs operating in the life sciences sector (138 innovative start-ups and 43 innovative SMEs) are located in Lombardy. It is the Italian most developed region in the Life Sciences sector, leading in genomics, biomedicine and healthcare management. Lombardy, has been working intensively to accelerate the digitalization of its healthcare ecosystem, fostering the adoption of telemedicine services, and supporting health and social workers in the complex process of treatment and assistance. It also supports the digitalisation of the healthcare sector 
in general, including by promoting technology transfer, supporting medtech start-ups, industrial innovation and collaboration between the public and private sectors. 

The contributions of Lombardy in the project will be related to investigate:

• The Health data storage system in use in each European Region
• The capability of each regional healthcare system to access, exchange, integrate and use the data
• The level of dematerialization of clinical documents
• The modality to access to clinical documents

Moreover, Lombardy Region will be involved in:

• Connecting the startup service ecosystems and service providers between regions;
• Collecting the inventory of available health data services in partner regions and placing it in UNITE Cloud
• Identify, analyse and connect to startup and scaleup funding services providers (e.g. VC, CVC);
• The Co-creation of Single Service Catalogue

All of these activities will be finalized to the participation in Open calls for developing a new digital product to improve the data accessibility and interoperability.

Małopolska is located in the south-eastern part of Poland, bordered by the Silesian Region to the west, the Świętokrzyskie Region to the north and the Podkarpackie Region to the east. The region’s southern neighbour is the Slovak Republic. 

The capital of the region is Krakow, the second most populous city in Poland (771,000 inhabitants) - an important scientific, cultural and economic centre. 

The economic potential of the Małopolska Region, calculated by the value of its gross domestic product, is one of the highest in the country. Małopolska, compared to other Polish regions, shows a high GERD indicator (internal expenditures on R&D in relation to GDP). This demonstrates the importance of research and development in the region’s economy, as R&D work is one of the main drivers of economic growth.

The Region of Central Macedonia (Kentrikí Makedonía) is a 2nd degree level of local administration in Greece. The Department of Innovation Support of the Directorate of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Support of the Region is the entity responsible for implementation, designing, monitoring and revising of Regional Innovation S3. 

One of the Central Macedonia Region aims is to foster innovation and entrepreneurship, to strengthen cooperation among ecosystem stakeholders, promoting their extroversion and supporting their enhancement and growth. Health (Biosciences – Health & Medicine) is one of the recognized sectors in the Regional Innovation Strategy, as big investments have elaborated, many startups and researchers produce innovative products and services. The strategy is giving emphasis on the silver-age economy, and the living of vulnerable social groups: well-being, accessibility, rehabilitation, integration. 

The Department of European Projects & Synergies serves RCM's vision is to be a key driver of sustainable growth and innovation by maximizing cross-sector synergies and ensuring the impactful use of European Union resources. Our mission is focused on administering and coordinating EU funding projects, fostering synergies, and supporting stakeholders to achieve meaningful outcomes aligned with EU policies and strategic priorities.

A national S3 authority UEFISCDI represents Romania in the project. The goal is that more healthcare institutions are adopting startup-provided solutions and more healthcare professionals are using startup-based solutions to solve their problems, providing testing opportunities throughout the regions of the country, notably at but not limited to capital region Bucuresti-Ilfov.

In Romania, the field of health was acknowledged as an objective of major social interest in Romania (e.g. National Strategy for Research, Development and Innovation, National Competitiveness Strategy, National Health Strategy). One can observe an increased activity and growth in the startup field, with more users of startup solutions. Even if the ecosystem is in its early stages, there is a significant increase in market penetration. The market evolution indicates that some healthcare institutions are adopting startup-provided solutions and some healthcare professionals are using startup-based solutions to solve their problems. Despite the challenges (fear of the unknown and the lack of understanding about technology, regulatory issues, lack of funding), there is a positive trend in the interest and the openness towards startups among medical professionals, particularly in the private sector. Prioritisation of health in public policies shows that public authorities started to understand their role in orchestrating the development of health tech ecosystem by advancing policies and funding opportunities supporting healthcare innovation. At national level, through this project UEFISCDI aims to bring together partners and stakeholders who understand and are committed to working together through collaboration, co-creation and open innovation to build a valley of health innovation around research infrastructures by promoting policies and funding opportunities that support health innovation. 

UEFISCDI will actively contribute to the UNITE project’s objectives by achieving the following goals, at both regional and national level: 

• A better sustainability of research and innovation investments ensured
• Improved science –business collaboration around health-tech innovation
• Community of health tech innovation actors built
• Complementary investments supporting regional innovation with high social impact identified

Scottish Enterprise is Scotland's national economic development agency and a non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government. We work to transform the Scottish economy by helping businesses innovate and scale and support projects that will result in more high value jobs, enable innovation, boost productivity levels, attract investment and support a just transition to net zero by 2045. 

We adopt a mission-based approach that allows us to deliver greater impact through developing collaborative relationships with our partners to shape opportunities and activities that will drive up levels of innovation, internationalisation and investment. 

Our missions are focussed around three priority areas:

• Creating an internationally competitive energy transition industry in Scotland
• Scaling the impact of Scotland’s innovation strengths into high-growth industries of the future
• Driving capital investment to deliver a step-change in Scotland’s productivity

Over and beyond our mission-based approach we also offer the following support -   

• Business development and advice
• Innovation support for new product and service development
• Export and international market support
• Targeting capital and inward investment that aligns with new market opportunities
• Helping businesses transition to net zero and adopt fair work practices by providing specialist advice and support
• Investing in projects that support regional innovation assets and connect with business capabilities in Scotland and around the world
• Entrepreneurial and scale-up support for high-growth spinouts, start-ups and scaling companies

For more information visit - Support and advice for businesses in Scotland | Scottish Enterprise (scottish-enterprise.com)