Researching health ecosystems - how do we do it?

The DRiVE team are gathering information about global technology and innovation entities that invest in and research health and aging. This information is available to you! We have entered the entities into a database which has been uploaded on our website through Scribble Maps. On the map we have the main contact information of these organizations which include hubs, clusters, institutes, networks, ecosystems, incubators and labs. Our map is consistently updated and expanded as we continue researching and contacting new entities.

Within Canada, approximately 25 organizations were included in our research and were contacted. While innovation in health technology is a focus for many of these organizations, very few of the entities have a specific focus on developing health technology for the aging population. Currently, the areas of focus include general medical research, patient-oriented care, and general health care technology. It is interesting to note that while Canada is currently expected to have a much larger elderly population within the next two decades, there is not a large focus on technological innovation specifically directed towards this demographic.

Different South American entities that focus on health using technology have been contacted in Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Argentina and Uruguay. Many of them are startup accelerators and universities that organize competitions, programs, and calls for projects that foster and support entrepreneurship in health and aging, as well as including them in their portfolio for continued investment on research on these specific fields. Moreover, some of the entities have developed research around pathologies that are associated with aging, or that target problems that generate an impact in their society.

Europe and the United States have also been extensively reviewed, with approximately 70 entities that were originally contacted for more information on their specialities in health technology. The large geography of the areas allowed for us to pinpoint specific hotspots for innovation in health and aging, such as Boston, MA and Cambridge, UK.

So far, the data that we have collected and inputted in our database has been available on our website, and presented at a conference focused on aging innovation, where researchers in the field interacted with it. This was an excellent opportunity for us to gather their feedback on where else to look for entities and point out any institutes that we might not have come across.

We are very excited to continue our data collection and build a comprehensive map highlighting organizations who are leading the way for innovation in health and aging.

If you are from an innovation entity such as a hub or accelerator, and don’t see your site listed on our global map, please get in touch and provide us with some basic information. We would be delighted to add you to our map and to promote your site amongst our growing network.

Innovation hub, innovation cluster, innovation system, regional innovation ecosystem, accelerator, living lab, innovation milieu… Have you googled any of these terms lately?

With the emergence of conversations on innovation in Canada, aligning with trends globally, these terms have been used (often interchangeably) to describe what regions, provinces and countries are working to achieve.

In the health and aging sector, the DRiVE team, working for AGE-WELL, investigate the partnerships and linkages among researchers, policy-makers, practitioners, industry, and citizens that are required to support health-tech and age-tech development, evaluation, commercialization and implementation. We have found ourselves perplexed by the lack of consistency in the terminology in this space.

We are working to resolve this confusion by building a taxonomy of innovation in the health and aging sector.

What we know at this point is that many of these concepts are nested and possibly hierarchical. However, some of these entities can stand alone- for example, it is unlikely that in the health innovation sector you would find an innovation hub, without a regional innovation ecosystem (RIE) or regional innovation systems (RIS) (which we know are synonymous terms).

We have reviewed the literature in this area and are now reaching out to self-described innovation hubs, clusters, and systems globally who are working in the health and aging space. We plan to learn from them about the decisions they make in the language they use to describe their actions and objectives.

So, are you like us and tangled up in all of this terminology? Are you tired of just googling around and want to have your say? We’d be delighted to hear from you.