Demographic change, disruptions of the global economy and geopolitics, and the multiple effects of climate change are challenging entire societies. One sector under pressure is health and welfare.
Meeting future challenges sustainably will require new solutions in social and health technologies, organisations, and policies. While health and welfare policies are decided on the national level, European and international cooperation is needed to identify and implement the best opportunities for reform.
“For health and care systems to renew in a meaningful way, different actors must adopt the ecosystem approach to achieve sustainable results. Even the big players are unable to effect change alone,” says Director Juha Teperi from Tampere University.
International partnership network to develop European health and care services
The THCS Partnership Programme, which had been prepared for several years, was officially launched in January 2023. In the Partnership Programme, research organisations, funding agencies and public authorities from 25 countries will come together to find future solutions through research and innovation.
“Much of the research and development in this field has been carried out from a national and local perspective. Comparative European research on health care and welfare services and benchmarking the best practices from one country’s system to another is an under-utilised resource, which the new Partnership Programme will improve in a big way. We have much to learn from each other,” says Research Professor Ilmo Keskimäki from THL.
In the Partnership Programme, THL will coordinate an entity that is mapping research, development and innovation measures and related educational needs and creating methods for disseminating best solutions among the systems of different countries.
The role of Tampere University is to support European-level measures to promote local, regional, and national ecosystems that are renewing health and welfare services.
“At the preparatory phase, many European countries were very interested in Finland’s social and health care reform because it is one of the largest change processes in Europe for decades. The wide-ranging partnership network is creating a link to the cutting-edge development of European health care and welfare services for Finnish frontrunners, including the most active wellbeing services counties,” Teperi explains.
Of the Finnish partners, the Academy of Finland will participate in the cooperation of national funding agencies that will fund multinational RDI projects. The first call of applications will be published on Tuesday 14 March.