The COVID-19 pandemic has sent shockwaves across the globe and disrupted societies, governments and the economy. Sectors like healthcare and education have come under unprecedented pressure to respond and deliver under the most challenging conditions.
As governments work on building back better, future-proof societies, the post-COVID-19 world represents the perfect opportunity to rethink and reset previous environments, working methods and systems.
What are the lessons-learnt in healthcare and education from the two-year long fight with COVID-19? How can we rethink traditional education and healthcare systems under the prism of open innovation and the living-labs methodology? And how can member-state and European Union policies enable this transition?

To answer these questions, three European Union-funded projects Schools as Living Labs, which Ecsite is part of, VITALISE and LOOP team up to convene the High-Level Roundtable on Next Generation Europe: How Co-Creation Can be an Answer to Europe’s Biggest Challenges.

Speakers:

• Ioannis Antoniou, president, Institute of Educational Policy, Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs, Greece
• Evdokimos Konstantinidis, president, European Network of Living Labs
• Apostolos Papalois, secretary-general, Network of Accredited Clinical Skills Centres in Europe – European Union of Medical Specialists
• Michael Teutsch, head of unit, schools and multilingualism, DG education, youth, sport and culture at the European Commission
• Rosina Malagrida, Head of the Living Lab for Health at IrsiCaixa, co-coordinator of the Barcelona “la Caixa” Living Lab
• Francesco Mureddu, senior director at the Lisbon Council, will introduce the roadmap to European policies for living-lab-based open schooling.

The debate will be guided by examples of current European actions in the field of Education and Health. On the one hand, the Schools As Living Labs approach will be presented. This approach promotes the involvement of students in the co-creation of innovative solutions to everyday life problems in cooperation with the local community, with significant benefits in terms of developing 21st-century skills. Existing innovative approaches will also be explored to provide the necessary support for the professional and social development of teachers in this new landscape. On the other hand, examples of Living Lab infrastructures conducting human-centred research and innovation projects in the health field will be discussed.

The High-Level Roundtable is aimed at policy makers, as well as any interested member of the research and innovation ecosystem. It seeks to inform about the potential of adopting the Living Lab approach for supporting the school of tomorrow, developing health innovation, and, promoting sustainability and resilience in modern societies with citizens as active co-creators of solutions. At the same time, participating policy makers will have the opportunity to highlight current and planned policies for Education, Health, Sustainability, Research, and Innovation, which can be supported and further developed through synergies with the Living Lab initiatives.

Details:

• Date and time: 8 July, 10.00-12.00 EET
• Welcoming coffee from 09h30 and followed by a networking lunch
• Location: Hybrid event
  Cotsen Hall, American School of Classical Studies, Anapiron Polemou 9, 10676 Athens, Greece
  Live broadcasted on Youtube, the link will be provided to the participants after their registration
• Registration: Please register here

The event is co-organised by the European think tank and policy network The Lisbon Council, the European Network of Science Centres and Museums Ecsite, the European Network of Living Laboratories ENoLL, Ellinogermaniki Agogi, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the Institute of Education Policy, in the framework of the European projects Schools as Living Labs, VITALISE and LOOP.