Connecting RIS-3 in the Baltic Sea Region through an eHealth collaborative interregional platform for innovation

A Baltic Sea region cooperation platform for eHealth initiatives should establish an agenda build on smart specialisation and mobilize regional resources.

A workshop on the topic of eHealth was arranged in the frame of the EUSBSR annual forum in Jurmala by Region Skåne, the EU RIS 3 smart specialisation platform, the Polish Ministry for Science and Higher Education, Vinnova and ScanBalt® fmba.

The objective was to gather forerunning regions giving priority to eHealth in their smart specialisation strategies and to discuss the possibility to create a Baltic Sea region cooperation platform on eHealth initiatives in the BSR.

All participants share the problem that even though there are many eHealth development processes with a fast pace technical development, relatively few eHealth solutions are implemented into clinical health care practise.

How do we make sure to recognize opportunities and implement solutions? To be successful here, transregional and transnational cooperation is needed, in the Baltic Sea region and globally.

The Interreg Baltic Sea Program and potentially the European Regional Development Funds (ERDF) can be utilized to support initiatives, planning of infrastructure, capacity building and smart specialisation.

Key conclusions of the meeting were that priority should be given to long-term sustainable results, the establishment of an eHealth agenda for the Baltic Sea region promoting smart specialisation and the mobilization of regional resources for trans-national collaboration.

Participants were the Swedish regions Skåne, East Sweden and Västra Götaland and the German federal state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Region Oulu in Finland (North Ostrobothnia) together with EU RIS 3, the macro-regional innovation structure and smart specialisation platform ScanBalt and the network eHealth for Regions.

Next meeting will take place September 7 in Stockholm prior to the BSR Health and Bio Economy Project Accelerator Day (8th, seehere ) and the Nordic Life Science Days (9th and 10th, see here).