EIT Health’s Matchmaking event 2019 features record number of participants and meetings

Finding partners for 2020 projects

More than 340 participants, a large majority of them from EIT Health Partners, came to Berlin 5-7 February 2019 for our annual Matchmaking event, hosted by the German EIT Health partner Fraunhofer.

With less than two months to the submission of EIT Health Innovation, Business Creation and Education project proposals for 2020, participants used this chance to find the partners that could complete their project plans.

The core of the event consisted of individual meetings partners could schedule through the Matchmaking platform.

A record number of partners took part in a record number of meetings – almost 550 of which were scheduled in advance. In addition, numerous informal meetings took place in the Networking Atrium.

The first day started with the group Matchmaking sessions organised by the programme areas of Accelerator and Campus, with a focus on their activity lines, such as Bootcamps, Entrepreneur and Innovator education, Professionals and Executive courses, Summer Schools and Citizen Programmes. Innovation Project Matchmaking was held later that day, and Matchmaking opportunities continued throughout the event.

Also throughout the course of the event, various speakers gave engaging presentations:

Patient and Public Involvement: Ania Henley, Imperial College NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, Patient & Public Involvement Adviser, spoke about involving patients and the public in project planning in development. Her presentation noted the possibilities and pitfalls of using patient and public involvement to approve a project, and looked at ways to encourage this involvement.
Market Access: Manuel Mandler, Gothaer Krankenversicherung AG, Chief Digital Officer, disucussed the challenges of market entry, using the German system as an example, to give a step-by-step breakdown of the typical journey and obstacles for an innovation that is heading to the market.
Project Impact Measurement: Christina Ackermann, Chair of The 5612 Group AB and former president of ICHOM, discussed project impact and how it is measured, looking at what matters most for a proposal and how “real impact” is measured.

Images of the action in Berlin: