History

The European Regions Network for Health Research & Innovation (RegHealth-RI) is a 2-year project funded by EU under the Horizon 2020 framework which started in November 2014. The project aims to analyse and discuss the performance of health research & innovation (R&I) across the different EU regions (and countries) by:

• Studing the State of the Art of the health R&I activities in EU regions to find key factors, specific differences and common patterns giving rise to differences between them.
• Designing and implementing indicators to rate the degree of development of the health R&I across the EU regions.
• Debating the divide in European health R&I to bring possible remedial actions.
• Contributing to three key Horizon 2020 goals, namely: (1) reducing the gaps in health R&I across the EU regions, (2) widening the participation in H2020 and (3) facilitating synergies between H2020 and Structural Funds
• Promoting the dialogue between different actors involved in health R&I in Europe: EU/national/regional authorities, academic and R&D organisations, Horizon 2020 NCPs, industry and enterprises, health clusters, S&T parks and incubators, etc., to promote the exchange of knowledge and expertise.
• Finally, disseminating the project results to the appropriate stakeholders, with a special focus to EC and regional decision-makers.

The implementation of networking activities is considered as an essential point to success and accomplish the above mentioned objectives. Thus, RegHealth-RI has included the organisation of three workshops and a final conference during the project life. These activities are expected to lead to the creation, enlargement, strengthening and further sustainability of the ‘RHInG-Net Network’.

During the preparation of the project proposal, a high number of stakeholders and experts were identified and engaged. They expressed their willingness to collaborate with RegHealth-RI project by taking part in the networking activities planned. This group of experts may be considered as the ‘seed’ of the RHInG-Net, which is expected to be sustained after the completion of RegHealth-RI project to exploit their main and noteworthy results in an attempt to keep working for improving EU regions and countries cohesion and competitiveness.

Network Launching

The first workshop of the RegHealth-RI project, which was held on Madrid the last 18-19 June 2015, served as the starting point of the RHInG-Net Network. Different suggestions, ideas and approaches for network dissemination and stakeholder engagement were discussed and proposed. Initially, members of project consortium, advisory board and associated partners will be part of the RHInG-Net network. Then, it is expected that other external experts and stakeholder groups (previously identified) will join the network after fitting dissemination and engagement strategies.