D-CareLabs Developing Labs to Facilitate Home Care Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the Danube Region

In the Danube Region (DR), fundamental needs of home care beneficiaries are not satisfied by current social service providers. There are extensive requirements to fulfill needs e.g. as proper medical therapies and support for body hygiene (basic needs), provision of adequate home facilities to prevent falls (security needs) and measures to enable social inclusion of needy people into the local community (social needs). In AT/D, especially poor people and rural areas lack of proper services. In CEE countries, even essential services are often not provided. Staff shortages, financial restrictions and insufficient use of new digital technologies are part of the problem in the whole DR. Social entrepreneurial trainings and few recently established social innovation labs aim to facilitate innovation of new services/products in the DR to tackle such societal challenges. Building upon these approaches, the project aims to establish 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. Therefore, it contributes to the implementation of SPO 1.2 (developing innovative social services) in the domain of home care. The Transnational Lab Strategy is based on analysis of beneficiary needs (incl. needs caused by the Corona virus), innovation potentials/logjams and intends to identify complementary interregional resources (WPT1). The Transnational Lab of the Labs (WPT2) offers a framework for the incubation of the Regional Labs (WPT4) and a community of practice to increase mutual learning and transnational co-creation. The setup of Ecosystems of Social Investment (WPT3) creates financial and entrepreneurial support structures. During the pilot actions of 9 regional labs innovation structures are tested and improved (WPT4). 

Developing Labs to Facilitate Home Care Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the Danube Region
Start date
01-07-2020
End date
31-12-2022
Budget in Euro
Overall: 2.515.895.12
ERDF Contribution: 1.767.214.96
IPA Contribution: 284.608.33
ENI Contribution: 86.687.53
Call number
Call 3
Priority
Innovative and socially responsible Danube region
Specific objective
Increase competences for business and social innovation

Project Partners

Name Type Email Country
Diakonie Baden Lead partner kvonhoff@diakonie-baden.de Germany
University of Heidelberg ERDF partner georg.mildenberger@csi.uni-heidelberg.de Germany
Hungarian National Association of Local Authorities ERDF partner sabjan@toosz.hu Hungary
ACT Group ERDF partner teo.petricevic@act-grupa.hr Croatia
Faculty of Law of University of Zagreb ERDF partner gojko.bezovan@pravo.hr Croatia
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Project News

  • D-CareLabs - About the incubation of the regional D-Care Labs
    - 17-02-2023
    About the incubation of the regional D-Care Labs

    Establishing a social innovation lab focusing on the field of home care is no easy feat, but the D-Care Labs partners took this challenge in stride and have managed, through the work of the 9 regional D-Care Labs, to innovate more than 50 home...

  • D-CareLabs - D-Care Labs on the joint learnings of the D-Care Lab Community of Practice
    - 20-01-2023
    D-Care Labs on the joint learnings of the D-Care Lab Community of Practice

    The work of the D-Care Labs project ended in December 2022, and the work of the last 2 years culminated in a variety of publications that we are happy to present to the wider public. One of the work packages of the project that produced a...

  • D-CareLabs - Social Innovation Method Toolbox
    - 23-02-2022
    Social Innovation Method Toolbox

    Realizing social needs, developing first ideas and transforming them into fruitful innovation is a hypothesis based and iterative process of entrepreneurial or intrapreneurial actions. Social innovation labs support the innovation processes by...

  • D-CareLabs - D-CARE LABS PRESENTED AT THE 8TH DANUBE PARTICIPATION DAY
    - 28-10-2021
    D-CARE LABS PRESENTED AT THE 8TH DANUBE PARTICIPATION DAY

    Digitalisation and digital solutions can enrich the lives of us all and pave the way towards a more sustainable, innovative and prosperous future. To truly ensure such a future for all, it is timely that discussions on participatory...

  • D-CareLabs - A week of D-Care Labs activities!
    - 21-07-2021
    A week of D-Care Labs activities!

      A week of D-Care Labs activities!     Last...

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Programme co-funded by European Union funds (ERDF, IPA, ENI)