Partner Assembly approves Strategic Agenda and Business Plan 2018

Dear EIT Health Partners,

More than 65 representatives of our partnership gathered on Thursday and Friday in Heidelberg for several meetings, including our Partner Assembly, where we made crucial decisions on our updated Strategic Agenda, our Business Plan for 2018 and other areas.

Additional partners joined us online and by phone for the official Partner Assembly session. Jointly, we achieved major milestones, above all the unanimous approval by the partnership of the proposed update to our Strategy Agenda, as well as our Business Plan 2018. Following is a summary of the Partner Assembly session and decisions:

Recent EIT Health developments

The Partners received an update on our recent developments. The implementation of our 2017 portfolio included a smooth launch of our activities in the three pillars and a faster start-up than 2016. We see first results being delivered in all pillars and see a growing number of applicants for many programmes.

There are currently 138 Partners in our network. The strong involvement of the partnership, with 97 partners engaged in activities, was also demonstrated by the review process for the Business Plan. Excellent new organisations have joined us or will join us in 2017, including members of industry, healthcare providers, payers and public sector organisations.

The EIT Health Think Tank started its work of involving payers, healthcare providers and policy makers, and will hold a regional round table before the end of 2017, two more roundtables in 2018, and a European Summit in mid 2018.

Looking ahead, we have updated our Strategic Agenda to help us steer EIT Health towards the creation of impact building on the strength of the partnership. Moreover, we have identified a few key initiatives to increase focus and create impact.

Updated Strategic Agenda

The update of our Strategic Agenda included the development of our updated mission statement:

EIT Health: The dynamic, integrated network for talent, innovation and entrepreneurship, empowering citizens to lead healthier and more productive lives.

The updated Strategic Agenda also mentions three major strategies to follow so that EIT Health will create maximum impact by 2022:

•       Focus resources across pillars, integrating needs of healthcare providers, payers and citizens

•       Engage our partners’ assets and strengths, delivering ROI in a clearly articulated value proposition

•       Create impact through collaborations with regions and cities, for faster scale up and adoption

New initiatives mentioned in the update of the Strategic Agenda include:

1. Defining focus areas

2. A revised Innovation Process, rules for participation and wild cards

3. Mapping and leveraging assets

4. The Think Tank

5. Greater external communication and dissemination

Focus areas will impact all pillars and create critical mass: They will fall within the scope of the business objectives, zooming in on specific issues but covering related challenges as well. The focus areas help define Innovation Projects calls, but also will be influencing the calls for Campus and Accelerator.

The overall goal for the period 2018-2020 is to grow EIT Health’s base of activities and focus its resources, in order to demonstrate a strong impact by 2022. This includes the generation of major impact stories, large scale implementation of solutions throughout European regions and realisation of the potential of digital health.

Business Plan 2018

The Business Plan 2018 continues to focus on the major objectives of EIT Health: prevention and management of chronic diseases, empowering citizens to manage their health, removing barriers to implementation, and leveraging new technology and data.

The portfolio of activities focuses on:

•       Developing a balanced portfolio of incremental and potentially disruptive innovations, integrating the knowledge triangle along the whole process, and engaging both demand and supply side of healthcare.

•       Facilitating implementation of new solutions across regions of Europe, through structural collaborations and increased Accelerator support.

•       Innovating education offerings through focus on citizen and professional education, using innovative education models, methods and formats, and shaping future health education together with world-leading institutions in EIT Health and around the globe.

•       Integrating the strengths of our partners’ incubators and accelerators, with particular focus on programmes for financing, coaching and testing, as well as further expansion across regions.

The 2018 Innovation Projects Portfolio

The 2018 Campus Portfolio fulfils EIT Health’s overall mission by pursuing the following strategies:

• Supporting active ageing and promoting prevention

• Leveraging Quality through certification & labelling

• Empowering citizens and patients to manage their health

• Empowering Health Executives & Innovators to innovate

• Increasing outreach and knowledge transfer

EIT Health Accelerator complements and integrates private and semi-private accelerators. Entrepreneurs have benefited from improved access to knowledge, training and the support of the most influential European players, who cover the breadth of healthcare.

According to the EIT Health Strategic Agenda 2016-22, facilitating access to expertise and first customers through the partnership is one of the key strategic goals of the Accelerator – along with organising EIT Health investors into an active network and attracting additional funding to EIT Health start-ups.

The Business Plan 2018 has now been submitted to the EIT, and the EIT Hearings in Budapest, in which a KIC representation presents and defends our Business Plan, will take place at the end of November. Soon after, the EIT will inform each KIC about its budget and we will course share that information with you soon after.

Supervisory Board

The Partner Assembly approved as well some leadership changes in relation to our Supervisory Board (SB):

The following new Supervisory Board members have been approved: Nora Benhabilès (France), Nathalie Virag and Helen Ward (UK-Ireland) and Jan-Olov Höög (Scandinavia).

The Assembly also approved a limited amendment of our Articles of Association for the purpose of creating an independent SB membership that enables EIT Health to elect an independent chair, in order to be compliant with the current EIT regulations.

Alexander von Gabain has been appointed as an independent SB member. Alex has been a very active contributor to EIT Health for numerous years, is well acquainted with the EIT, and has left his duties at Karolinska Institute. Upon the Partner Assembly’s approval, the SB subsequently elected Alex as the new independent chair.

Other decisions

Following approval by the Partner Assembly, Ferrer will re-join EIT Health as Associate partner.

In order to have a solid legal base for the collection of the 2018 membership fees, the Partner Assembly also confirmed the level of fees: Core EUR 75,000/year, Associate EUR 25,000/year.

One of our first initiatives after this Partner Assembly will be to define our new Innovation Platform, including the Calls for the Business Plan 2019. You will hear soon more about this.

Further meetings in Heidelberg

The evening before the Partner Assembly, students of the EIT Health EUVentionSummer School joined the partners for an evening reception opened in the historic “Alte Aula” of Heidelberg University. After welcoming words by Prof. Dr. Rausch, the EIT Health representative of Heidelberg University and myself on behalf of EIT Health, Prof. Dr. Bartenschläger from the Department of Infectious Diseases, Molecular Virology, offered a fascinating keynote speech on the triumphs and challenges of antiviral therapy. Following the networking continued at a dinner reception.

On Friday morning, before the Assembly, lead host EIT Health Germany, organised innovation speeches by promising entrepreneurs and regional partners and an interactive marketplace.

Also, on behalf of the EIT Health community, I would like to thank outgoing Supervisory Board Chair Koen Debackere for his outstanding contributions, and congratulate Alexander von Gabain on his role as incoming Supervisory Board Chair.