Health2CARE - Health Cross Cluster Alliance for Regional Entrepreneurship

Submitted by Alina Danieles… on 20 June 2016

The European project Health2CARE coordinated by Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region aimed to test and validate new methods and tools to improve regional policies dedicated to support innovation. It also allowed to strenghten the cross-sectoral cooperation and in-fine the development of new solutions in the personalised healthcare.  Such processes lead to new, altered or improved solutions, goods and services that transform and create new industrial value chains - emerging industries. Clusters and cluster organisations are very well suited to facilitate such transformative processes as they are able to reach out to stakeholders in different industries and regions and support their members (Start_ups & SMEs) to grow.

Information on the project Health2CARE Programme: CIP Call identifier (optional):  Project full name: Health Cross Cluster Alliance for Regional Entrepreneurship Acronym: Health2CARE Duration: from February 2014 till April 2016

Consortium composition:  

Participant No Participant Organisation Name Country       
1 Région Rhône-Alpes (Coordinator) France       
2 i-Care Cluster France       
3 Lyonbiopole     France       
4 Minalogic     France       
5 Plastipolis     France       

Objectives The Health2CARE project is a 2-year initiative (3/02/2014 – 2/02/2016), co-funded by the European Union and coordinated by Région Rhône-Alpes (RRA). Thanks to a strong regional political commitment, the project aims to gather 4 clusters dedicated to different technological and industrial sectors – Medical technology, Biotechnology, Micro-nanoelectronics & software and polymers & composites industry- to enhance the cross-sectorial cooperation in the field of personalised medicine. Due to the strong focus on cluster community coming from the four clusters involved in the project and based on a creativity-driven approach, the project is likely to have a significant impact in strengthening local SME’s competitiveness and creating further employment opportunities.

Sectoral/industrial focus: Personalised medicine

Executive Summary

The European project Health2CARE, co-financed by the European Commission (DG Grow) and coordinated by Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region aimed to test and validate new methods and tools to improve regional policies dedicated to support innovation. It also allowed to strenghten the cross-sectoral cooperation and in-fine the development of new solutions in the personalised healthcare.  Such processes lead to new, altered or improved solutions, goods and services that transform and create new industrial value chains - emerging industries. Clusters and cluster organisations are very well suited to facilitate such transformative processes as they are able to reach out to stakeholders in different industries and regions and support their members (Start_ups & SMEs) to grow. The involvement of 4 regional clusters i-Care, Lyonbiopôle, Minalogic and Plastipolis in this project showed the importance of the cross sectoral approach to gather different technological and applied fields such as biotechnologies, medical devices, plasturgy, micro-technologies and software. The main assessment of the programme is the identification of 20 projects and the support to 9 of them. All these companies’ projects have been gathered in a directory available on the Health2CARE website.

Expected Results  Through the creation of a cross sectoral community,  the objective was to support companies in their development and foster their access to market in testing new tools such as “innovation vouchers”. The objective was also political to enrich the regional innovation policy with new tools and develop the regional cross fertilization in line with the S3.

The results of the project are the fruit of: - 2 calls for expression of interest towards regional companies, driven by Lyonbiopôle and i-Care Cluster involving a panel of European experts for the selection of projects. - Services (business development, market studies, reglementary affairs,...) provided to companies by European consultants via innovation vouchers and managed by Minalogic and Plastipolis

A political part went along with the programme through study trips in 2 other European regions and a peer review work driven by European experts in order to advise the Regional Council on the evolution of its policy tools for innovation. The lessons, experiences and insights gained at all three levels - policy, cluster and business have successfully attained the initial aims of providing impact at a regional level. From the European perspective, the objective now is to nourish our innovation policy with recommendations elaborated at the end of the project. The idea is also to continue to share our experience and engage in partnerships with other European regions and clusters. 

Events organized by the project

  • 30 September 2014: Health Techdays
  • 2 April 2015: Workshop on Plastronic
  • 29 September 2015: Health Techdays
  • 7 October 2015 : Partnering days
  • 16 March 2016: Workshop on smart invasive medical devices
  • 31 March 2016: Health2CARE Final conference

Coordinator contact details Name: Laurence MINNE Organisation and position: Région Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes – Project manager –Research, technology and Innovation department Address: 1 esplanade François Mitterrand - CS 20033 - 69269 LYON Cedex 02 Phone number:  00 33 (0)4 26 73 65 95 Email: laurence.minne [at] auvergnerhonealpes.eu ">laurence.minne [at] auvergnerhonealpes.eu     Website: health2care.rhonealpes.fr 

Highlights: Number, quality and expected impact of the new concepts, methods and tools developed and tested in the project:  34 projects submitted, 20 projects identified and 9 innovation vouchers delivered to companies

Number of SMEs benefiting from participation:  115 companies identified in the smart data base dedicated to personalised healthcare

Additional public and private funds mobilised in support of emerging industries:  ERDF funds, regional funds