What is the project about?
This international collaboration is the beginning of a long-term internationalisation initiative in precision health. The project will run from October 2021 to October 2022.
The goal is to germinate transatlantic collaborative projects and feasibility studies between Swedish and American actors within precision health, as well as establishing a long-term collaboration plan. The project consists of two tightly integrated parts that will be carried out during 2022. In the first part, actors in California and Sweden will be invited to workshops on narrow, thematic fields, to find partners for collaborative projects or feasibility studies. In the other part, selected Swedish universities and innovative environments will be invited to round table talks to come up with suggestions as to the way forward post-project.
Sweden Innovation Days
One of the first activities in which LiU is participating is “Sweden Innovation Days” (SID). LiU will use the opportunity to tell people about the project and to reach out and engage even more actors. On 18 January 2022, the theme is “Preventative Health and Wellbeing”, and LiU will be participating via Vinnova’s digital room. The keynote speaker is Professor Gunilla Jacobson, a LiU chemistry alumn, and now the Director of Translation Medicine on the Rad/Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford University. In the final panel discussion about the theme “Preventative Health and the Importance of International Collaboration in Precision Health”, both Gunilla and LiU’s vice-chancellor Jan-Ingvar Jönsson will participate together with Jenni Nordborg, the national life sciences coordinator who leads life sciences work in the Swedish Government Offices, and Laurent Saunier, Head of Precision Health at Vinnova.
Read more: Sweden Innovation Days 2022
The project’s background:
The world is facing several complex challenges, one of them being health and life sciences. To achieve sustainable development, cooperation between organisations and nations is crucial. Today, healthcare systems work mainly with making diagnoses and performing treatment. Going forward, preventative work must be prioritised, in order to help save resources and give more people the opportunity to live healthily. This requires the development of methods for bespoke healthcare, with diagnoses and treatments being given with higher precision. Sweden has cutting-edge healthcare, prominent research and innovation environments, and a digitalised healthcare system. As a country, we have good opportunities for national and international collaboration.
With the Sustainable Precision Health initiative, Vinnova aims to mobilise and achieve innovation that will help more people live healthier lives, thereby enabling preventative, accurate and equitable healthcare work. This project is connected to Agenda 2030 (goal 3 and 17), and has a national connection to the strategic innovation programmes Medtech4Health and SWElife.
