As Europe isolates due to Covid19, the wellbeing cost on our population is yet to be determined. Huge and overwhelming worries envelop our communities, sudden unemployment, weakened social institutions and eroded social capital. Mental health support services are preparing for an unprecedented spike in demand. A study in The Lancet confirms that the loss of liberty, fear of infection and length of separation creates an environment conducive to post-traumatic stress, detachment, insomnia and anger - “the psychological impact of quarantine is wide-ranging, substantial, and can be long-lasting.”Social Prescribing is a powerful, proven community mechanism to improve the physical, emotional, mental wellbeing of adults by connecting them to non-medical community-based sources of supports. While the benefits of social prescribing are vast and the process relatively simple, social prescribing is still a relatively unknown community approach to embedding life-long learning as a resource for living. Using a cross sectoral, transnational approach, Activate Social Prescribing for Community Learning (ASPALE) promotes the principle of social prescribing to key adult education groups across the EU. A key impact of APSALE is the introduction and uptake of the social prescribing approach in 3 countries where it is currently just a concept - Greece, Spain & France and widening its practice in UK/Northern Ireland and Ireland.ASPALE PROJECT OBJECTIVES are directly linked to the needs of our target groups. ASPALE will:1) Introduce the powerful health and wellbeing concept of Social Prescribing as a lifelong learning tool in Europe 2) Empower at risk adults to improve their health literacy & take responsibility for their own health (IO2). Effective social prescribing is about providing the building blocks for personal learning & knowledge application in a wellbeing context. 3) Create tailored guides & supports (IO1, IO3, IO4) for social prescribing implementers to help them understand &embed social prescribing in their work4) Facilitate sustainable links between key local & regional social prescribing organisations via creating 5 ASPALE PARTICIPANT FORUMSEach ASPALE IO is designed to be used as an independent resource, but collectively, they are a 360 degree adult education initiative to empower and equip vulnerable adults, community care providers, health and care practices and social/cultural educators to understand and embed social prescribing in their work/offering. IO1: Health Literacy Empowerment Guide for Adults. A self-care guide to empower adults (particularly those suffering from poor mental health) to make sound health and wellbeing decisions and improve their personal responsibility and independence in everyday life - at home, in the community, at the workplace. It will improve the health literacy of at least 1,000 adults in vulnerable positions (those suffering from loneliness, depression or other issues such as social isolation). They will download or receive our ASPALE Adult Health Literacy Guide, a practical action orientated learning resource that will enable them to start making positive and pro-active decisions about their wellbeing and health.IO2: Compendium of Social Prescribing Community Care Projects. A Compendium and Implementation Guide of European Social Prescribing Best Practices and Inventions e.g Men’s Sheds, Social Farming, Community Gardening. At least 500 Community Care Organisations will download and use IO2 and begin the process of embedding social prescribing in their work with adults IO3: Social Prescribing Training Programme/OERs for Health and Care Practices. An Open Education Resource Pack for to upskill Health and Care practitioners with applied knowledge to embed social prescribing in their work with vulnerable adults. At least 500 practitioners will download and use IO3 and begin the process of embedding social prescribing in their work with adults IO4: Introduction to Social Prescribing Course for Social/Cultural Service educators. A training course on how to create new or tailored social /cultural adult education offerings e.g. art/creative wellbeing workshops, drama therapy, which uses storytelling, acting, and improvisation to encourage self-discovery and expression, music therapy, that deliver socially prescribed health and wellbeing benefits. At least 500 Social, Arts and Cultural Educators will download and use IO4 and begin the process of embedding social prescribing in their work with adults Activate Social Prescribing for Community Learning (ASPALE) provide a dynamic multi-resource adult education community learning programme to raise awareness, engagement and adoption of Social Prescribing across Europe. COVID19 is certain to cause long-term isolation, anxiety, depression and loneliness. We do not know when this crisis will end but we do know that new and varied social solutions are going to be required to help Europe and its citizens heal.

Pharaon’s overall objective is to make a reality smart and active living for Europe’s ageing population by creating a set of integrated and highly customizable interoperable open platforms with advanced services, devices, and tools including IoT, artificial intelligence, robotics, cloud computing, smart wearables, big data, and intelligent analytics. Platform interoperability will be implemented within Pharaon ecosystems and platforms, as well as other standardised platforms within health and other domains (energy, transport and smart cities). Pharaon will consider relevant standards and will contribute to them with the help of the two standardisation bodies of the consortium. Data privacy, cybersecurity, interoperability and openness will be key design principles to pursue through the requirements generated by Pharaon experts. Pharaon will be built upon mature existing state-of-the-art open platforms and technologies/tools provided by the partners, which will be customised and will implement cloud technologies, AI techniques and traditional algorithms for big data intelligent analytics. A user-centric approach will be followed. Pharaon will evolve based on the user feedback and the results from a MAFEIP framework that will be implemented for impact assessment. Both inputs will be used to find innovative solutions through two “open calls”: (1) single solutions, and (2) solutions to be demonstrated in small-scale pilots. Pharaon’s integrated platforms will be validated in two stages: pre-validation and large-scale pilots (LSPs), in six different pilot sites: Murcia and Andalusia (Spain), Portugal, The Netherlands, Slovenia and Italy. A team of partners in each pilot will ensure its right development. A set of development tools will be created and made publicly available to simplify the customisation and integration. These tools and the results of dissemination will spread the generated knowledge to promote the development of new solutions similar to Pharaon.

see above

The Age Friendly Communities project is transformative since it creates lasting impact for businesses, particularly SMEs and their employees; using innovative VET work-based learning methods to enhance critical digital and entrepreneurial skills that help companies respond to the increasing demand for new products and services within the Silver Economy. Rapid demographic ageing is not only a major societal challenge but also a major opportunity for new jobs and growth. However, the silver segment remains underserved despite being the biggest opportunity in the market. Products and services are not designed to meet older people’s needs and despite being worth half of the market, only 10% of marketing spend is aimed at this group. Thus the aim of our Age Friendly Communities project is clear; to support individuals working in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to develop entrepreneurial, innovation and digital skills through innovative WBL that support their professional development but also innovate the products and services demanded by older people. As result, older people are being offered improved and more appropriate products and services, and regions will benefit from increased economic activity and development. In order to achieve this we set out the following project methodology. The main activities undertaken include: A work based learning toolkit was developed to guide VET providers, business support organisations and wider stakeholders to effectively guide work based learning for SME’s in their region. See appendix 1. Four regional stakeholder partnerships were established as part of this process bringing together 58 stakeholders. They were consulted for needs analysis, mapping of existing supports, the development of regional action plans and dissemination activities.A set of open education resources on Digital Technology Skills was developed comprising a wealth of information in over 250 slides. A summary is included as appendix 2. 60 SME’s/16 trainers were trained in its usage.A 2-day Age Friendly Product/service innovation bootcamp was developed. 67 SME’s took part in these bootcamps across the four regions and each received a bespoke commercialisation action plan. Our joint syllabus and bootcamp overview are included as Appendix 3 and 3b respectively.An online collaborative exchange platform was developed and over 250 users engaged in its implementation. The work based learning toolkit, the full suite of IO2 materials, information relating to IO3, summaries of our regional plans and much more are available on the collaborative platform www.agefriendlyeconomy.eu Impact As stated previously, this project is transformative in three main ways, directly tackling key challenges associated with growing the Silver Economy and deficits within the industry. First, it updates the skills of businesses’ staff; ensuring companies have capacity to adapt to changing consumer demand and behaviour. Second, it improves competitiveness through innovative work-based and lifelong learning programmes. Third, it promotes the commercialisation of innovative products and services to meet growing demand. Age Friendly Economy has drawn together organisations through establishing enduring local learning and employer networks and through Strategic Road Maps for Regional WBL and promoting wider impacts across the EU and beyond. Increased numbers of participants will enhance their potential through the acquisition of new skills and training. This will lead to improved productivity and increased commercialisation by SMEs. The project has been successful in responding to a genuine need experienced by partner organisations in the education, entrepreneurship support, voluntary and economic development sectors who will benefit from using the outputs and sustaining the impacts of the project in the long term. Our independent post project evaluation report is included at appendix 4.

The proportion of elderly aged over 65 in Europe will rise to 30% by 2060, while over the same period, the proportion of those aged 80 and over will more than double from 5% to 12% of the population, becoming almost as numerous as young people under the age of 15. Thereby, the increasing need and pressure on long term health care services is very clear. The premise of Pioneering Innovative Food for Seniors (PIFS) is that as adults age, their bodies become less efficient at absorbing and metabolising nutrients at a time they need to take in more nutrients. This is challenging. Reducing mobility and dexterity means that it is more troublesome to buy foods or prepare meals while certain foods may become difficult to consume due to changes in oral health. Importantly, many elderly people also experience a loss in appetite and are at risk of nutritional deficiencies. According to the Institute of Food Science and Technology (IFST), researchers at Wageningen University in the Netherlands purport that simply trying to motivate the elderly to consume more food is unlikely to be successful, given that their tendency to eat less is the source of the problem.A more promising approach is the commercialisation of nutrient-enriched foods for elderly, a type of functional food. Innovation is the lifeblood of the food industry and is essential for ensuring profitability and survival. However, the development of successful innovative products is challenging. In an average year, there are almost 80,000 new product launches around the world. According to Mintel, 30% of new food brands fail within the first year. The failure rate is more acute in years 2 and 3 to the extent that only one third of products are still around. Why is the failure rate so high? Of the total, over 75% are copycats or me-too products. In the food sector, it is recognised that only 1- 2% were classically innovative, genuinely new or, breakthrough products. This is in the context of the need to increase food production by anything between 70 per cent and 100 per cent by 2050. Due to specific challenges in the development and marketing of functional foods, failure rates in this product segment are likely to exceed these numbers. However, the food industry is traditionally considered as a sector with low research intensity. Our project responds to the Europe 2020 innovation strategy which set the scene “…with an ageing population and strong competitive pressures from globalization, Europe’s future economic growth and jobs will increasingly have to come from innovation in products, services and business models. This is why innovation has been placed at the heart of the Europe 2020 strategy for growth and jobs…” (EU, 2011). The increasing importance of innovation in the food industry is mainly due to the recent changes that the sector has faced, both in the nature of food demand and in the supply chain organization, together with a more and more competitive environment in which the food companies have to operate. The food industry has always been regarded as a mature and slow-growing sector with low research intensity, and quite conservative in terms of type of innovations introduced to the market (Christensenet al., 1996; Martinez and Briz, 2000). Although researchers develop continuously innovative products and technologies, their applications in the food industry meets several obstacles. For smaller food SMEs the challenge is stark. The innovation processes in the majority of food companies are still based on internal innovation efforts. They have poor interaction with academia and lack the innovation, research and development skills. For decades, food companies innovated following a “closed innovation” perspective. Such a perspective refers to a situation in which all innovation is developed internally and kept inside the company. In other words, no knowledge flows go into or out of the company. The lack of engagement with universities is also stark and universities are rated quite low as knowledge sources and potential partners by firms, notwithstanding their higher impact in terms of innovative outcomes with respect to other actors of the food supply chain, like customers, suppliers, and consumers, rated as primary sources of innovation (Howells et al., 2012).The Pioneering Innovative Food for Seniors project is transformative in that it creates lasting impact for food businesses, particularly SMEs and their employees; using innovative methods to enhance critical innovation and entrepreneurial skills that help companies respond to the increasing demand for new food products and services within the “Silver Economy”. Our project targets food SMEs with up-to-date knowledge and innovation skills necessary to capitalize on this niche market opportunity and the VET sector that provide training to same and will help them to grow their businesses AND empower senior consumers with wider food choices.