The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aspire to “leave no-one behind”. Universal access to assistive products is a critical link between the realization of the SDGs and those most likely to be left behind. However, assistive technology provision in many countries, particularly low- and middle-income countries, has traditionally been conducted through small-scale local providers, manufacturing products of varying degrees of quality at a limited price range. An effective way to scale these production and provision enterprises to the required level is needed to close the gap between available and required assistive technology. We argue that better access to assistive technology will only be realized through the adoption of a far stronger systems thinking and market shaping approach. We undertook a rapid literature review to explore the relationship between market shaping and assistive technology. Based on our review, we present an emergent framework for conceptualizing intersections between systems thinking and market shaping for assistive technology—the SMART (Systems-Market for Assistive and Related Technologies) Thinking Matrix.
Countering advanced cyber threats requires investments in awareness and qualified personnel, as well as advanced technological solutions. Very few companies have the competencies and capacity to attempt to provide comprehensive solutions and sustain the technological drive and skill levels. Novel organisational solutions are needed to deliver advantages vis-à-vis both threat actors and competitors. The European Union sees one potential solution in the establishment of a network of cybersecurity competence centres. Starting in the beginning of the centuy, the creation of collaborative networked organisations in other fields demonstrated significant benefits in sharing knowledge, resources, and risk to exploit quickly emerging market opportunities. The major challenge in creating networked organisations is to provide long-term, effective collaboration through adequate governance and management. To support the elaboration of a solid governance model of a cybersecurity competence network in a Horizon 2020 research project, this article presents the results of a study of 92 existing network organisations working in cybersecurity and closely related fields. It presents the implemented methodological approach, the identification of main types of business models depending on funding streams and the degree of coordination among partners, organisational modalities, and prevailing governance models depending on member representation on senior governance bodies.
As life expectancy continues to increase in most EU Member States, smart technologies can help enable older people to continue living at home, despite the challenges accompanying the ageing process. The Innovation Action (IA) SHAPES ‘Smart and Healthy Ageing through People Engaging in Supportive Systems’ funded by the EU under the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (grant agreement number 857159) attends to these topics to support active and healthy ageing and the wellbeing of older adults. This protocol article outlines the SHAPES project’s objectives and aims, methods, structure, and expected outcomes. SHAPES seeks to build, pilot, and deploy a large-scale, EU-standardised interoperable, and scalable open platform. The platform will facilitate the integration of a broad range of technological, organisational, clinical, educational, and social solutions. SHAPES emphasises that the home is much more than a house-space; it entails a sense of belonging, a place and a purpose in the community. SHAPES creates an ecosystem – a network of relevant users and stakeholders – who will work together to scale-up smart solutions. Furthermore, SHAPES will create a marketplace seeking to connect demand and supply across the home, health and care services. Finally, SHAPES will produce a set of recommendations to support key stakeholders seeking to integrate smart technologies in their care systems to mediate care delivery. Throughout, SHAPES adopts a multidisciplinary research approach to establish an empirical basis to guide the development of the platform. This includes long-term ethnographic research and a large-scale pan-European campaign to pilot the platform and its digital solutions within the context of seven distinct pilot themes. The project will thereby address the challenges of ageing societies in Europe and facilitate the integration of community-based health and social care. SHAPES will thus be a key driver for the transformation of healthcare and social care services across Europe.
Security needs and demands are nowadays constantly increasing for cybersecurity professionals and organisations in general. A cyber range provides a multipurpose virtual environment, which organisations can utilise for training, prototyping and certification of new technologies and create security testing environments that would otherwise be impossible to create. Being the equivalent of classic shooting ranges, cyber ranges are closed and controlled testbeds that contain all the necessary tools, networks and user simulations that are required for all intended security purposes. Within the scope of the ECHO project, a federation of interconnected cyber ranges form the foundation of the ECHO demonstration cases, providing the host environment in which three demonstration cases will be executed and demonstrate the added value that cyber ranges bring in the development of technology roadmaps, cyberskills development as well as certification testing.
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