EDUCAT

EDUCAT (Empowerment of Disabled people through the User Coproduction of Assistive Technology) is an European funded project to develop and deliver adaptive, open and modular technology to promote independence and improve quality of life for people with motor impairment and neurological disorders.

The project aims to promote a user-centered assistive technology design using co-design methods involving service users, engineers, clinicians, researchers, user-support networks and companies.

A key element of the project is to incorporate monitoring of equipment usage patterns. It is anticipated that analysis of this data will provide diagnostic information on user condition and changes in that condition. This information will improve the prescription of assistive technology, inform the ongoing adaptation of that technology to meet user needs and increase the success rate for the long term provision of assistive technology. The outcome will be to improve the user quality of life. The development is supported by clinical trials throughout the project.

The expected benefits are cost and time savings for companies (for developing technologies) and hospitals (for care) as well as a higher efficiency of use of the technology. The long term goal is to deliver affordable technology through cross-border collaboration and facilitate uptake on the market.

Partners

• Yncréa-ISEN Lille (FR)
• The University of Kent (GB)
• East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust (GB)
• KU Leuven (BE)
• Voka – Chamber of Commerce of East Flanders (BE)
• Sussex Community NHS Trust (GB)

The project benefits from further involvement of service users and a group of observers: CRN-T APF (FR), DSP Valley (BE),Dynamic Control (GB), ESIGELEG (FR), Eurasanté (FR), KABIF (GB) and SWBF (GB).

This project has received a grant of € 1,798,722.60 from  Interreg VA 2 Seas 2014-2020 co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund.

For more information visit the project website www.educat2seas.eu.