Results of the Consultation on the Pilot European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing

From 26 November 2010 to 28 January 2011, the European Commission ran an online public consultation seeking the views of all interested stakeholders on various aspects of the pilot partnership, including their views on the role of the partnership as well as their potential contribution to the partnership; their involvement in programmes, initiatives or projects relating to innovation for active and healthy ageing; innovation barriers encountered; and ideas for future initiatives.

A report ( 548 KB) that summarises the main trends and opinions received by the various stakeholders is now available.

Addendum to annex I of the report 

In addition to this report, in an effort to ensure full transparency, all contributions will be published shortly on this page.

Main findings

The public consultation obtained a total of 524 contributions, thereby providing the European Commission with a very rich, diverse and unique feedback.

The wealth of experiences and initiatives brought forward by the respondents reveal some key dimensions:

• Being active locally and regionally but fully benefiting from the richness of global knowledge and experiences;
• Focusing on implementation and bringing tangible results to the citizens through more coordinated actions;
• Thinking outside of the usual channels, structures and definitions.

These dimensions can be translated into more concrete suggestions. Respondents see barriers related to 1) funding 2) evidence, 3) regulation and framework conditions and 4) building capacity/skills.

In this regard, the respondents' proposals for action can be mapped onto the four main areas for European level EIP action:

•  Joining up efforts by encouraging cooperation based on a shared vision and common targets, fostering synergies and avoiding overlaps, to achieve results that respond better to citizens' needs;
• Bridging the gaps between public and private actions and instruments by addressing the lack of support on innovation to considerably reduce the time-to-market of research and innovation breakthroughs;
• Facilitating scaling up of results by reducing complexity, overcoming fragmentation and enabling different approaches to converge;
• Improving the framework conditions by removing bottlenecks and anticipating common regulatory and other needs for all stages of the innovation chain to achieve critical mass.