Project title: Developing Labs to Facilitate Home Care Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the Danube Region
Programme: Interreg Danube Transnational Programme
Duration: 07/2020 – 12/2022
Partner countries: Germany, Hungary, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, Austria, Slovenia, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Serbia, Moldova
Partners: Diakonie Baden (Germany), Grünhof (Germany), University of Heidelberg (Germany), Hungarian National Association of Local Authorities (Hungary), ACT Group (Croatia), Faculty of Law of University of Zagreb (Croatia), Federation of Social NGOs in Bulgaria, Caritas of the Archdiocese Vienna (Austria), Centre for European Perspective (Slovenia), Mozaik Foundation (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Partnership for Public Health Association (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Network of Organizations for Children of Serbia, AGAPEDIA Moldova Foundation (Moldova), FONT (Romania).
Associated Partners (APs): Ministry of Social Affairs Baden-Württemberg (Germany), Ministry of Interior (Hungary), Directorate-General for Social Affairs and Child Protection (Hungary), Ministry of Labour and Social Justice (România), Regional Development Agency – Central Region (Romania), Austrian Public Health Institute, City of Vienna (Austria), Labour and Statistics (Austria), ERSTE Foundation (Austria), Social Inclusion and Poverty Reduction Unit of the Government of the Republic of Serbia, Ministry of Health, Labour and Social Protection (Moldova), Hungarian Ministry of Human Capacities (Hungary), Municipality of Maribor (Slovenia), Agency for Social Assistance (Bulgaria)
Project budget: 2,515,895.12 €
D-Care Labs addresses the fundamental needs of home care beneficiaries, which are not satisfied by current social service providers. There are extensive requirements to fulfil needs e.g. as proper medical therapies and support for body hygiene, provision of adequate home facilities to prevent falls and measures to enable social inclusion of needy people into the local community.
Our project intends to address these challenges by establishing specialized macro-regional D-Care Lab innovation structures to enable social service providers, product developers and social start-ups to design and implement better and innovative home care services and products for elderly persons, people with disabilities and children with special needs.
The main objective of D-Care Labs is to strengthen the implementation of innovative social services in the domain of home care. The Transnational Lab Strategy is based on an analysis of beneficiary needs (incl. needs caused by the Coronavirus), innovation potentials and intends to identify complementary interregional resources.
The main result of D-Care Labs is the establishment of a Transnational Lab of the Labs which will offer a framework for the incubation of the Regional Labs and a community of practice to increase mutual learning and transnational co-creation. The setup of ecosystems of social investment will provide financial and entrepreneurial support structures. During the pilot actions of 9 regional labs, innovation structures will be tested and improved.
D-Care Labs will help institutional actors and other stakeholders in the DTP to identify obstacles, develop and implement a plan to address them; improve institutional capacities, analyse the beneficiary needs and innovation potential as well as offer a framework for the incubation of regional labs.
The project uses a methodology to facilitate the design/implementation of community-based home care innovations (regional D-Care Lab as bottom-up, integrative, need- and solution-oriented approach) and methods to encourage interregional collaboration and co-creation (Transnational Lab, community-building approaches). The project uses tools to involve relevant policy-actors of different levels to promote policy change in the areas of social innovation and home care.
D-Care Labs project is co-funded by the European Union Funds (ERDF, IPA, ENI).
Project is supported by Slovenski regionalno razvojni sklad.
Two-pager with information about the project can be found here.
Read the first eNewsletter of the D-Care Labs project here: D-Care Labs eNewsletter Issue 1
The second eNewsletter of the D-Care Labs can be found here.
Social media accounts of D-Care Labs: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & LinkedIn
Project website: D-Care Labs
For more information about the project turn to:
Ana Novak, Project Manager
Contact info: [email protected]