Ambient Assisted Living Joint Programme Delivers on Research Commercialisation

Source: Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (CNECT) i, published on Wednesday, December 18 2013.

The Ambient Assisted Living Joint Programme (AAL JP) was launched in 2008 with the aim of supporting industry, and in particular SMEs, in bringing digital innovative products and services for ageing well to the market. Some 150 projects have been launched since. As the five-year programme, for which half of the funding came from the 7th Research Framework Programme, and the other half from participating Member States' contributions, is now coming to a successful completion a high level expert group has produced a final evaluation report.

This report highlights among its key achievements:

  • - 
    the high participation rate of SMEs (over 40 % of project partners are SMEs);
  • - 
    the launch of a number of commercial products and services originating directly from the first projects; and
  • - 
    the shaping of a new innovation ‘ecosystem’ as demonstrated in the five AAL Forums which have been organised on an annual basis since 2009.

In its Communication adopted on 18 December the European Commission welcomes the final evaluation report and commits to addressing its recommendations. The Commission had already made use of the preliminary findings of the evaluation in its proposal of July 2013 for a follow-up to the Programme to be launched under Horizon 2020 as part of the growth package.

Read more ...