Networks and Associations

The Health and Wellness Industries Clust-ER is an association recognized and supported by the Region, made up of large companies, SMEs, universities, research centers, healthcare facilities, training institutions and patient associations that share expertise, ideas and resources to support the competitiveness of Emilia-Romagna's Health and Wellness Industries sector.

EIT HEALTH has the ambition to enable people in Europe to live longer and healthier lives.  An aging population, rising chronic diseases and increasing multi-morbidity put pressure on health care systems across Europe. Some 130 world-class organizations partnering with EIT HEALTH are working across borders to connect the three worlds of business, research, and education ("knowledge triangle").EIT HEALTH initiates projects to address problems with solutions-whether it is a new type of diagnostic, a device or therapy that can help better manage a disease, or infrastructure to improve the organization of care. It brings together the right people to turn ideas into commercially viable products and services. Since 2016, EIT HEALTH has supported more than 2,500 start-ups and scale-ups, trained more than 49,000 students and professionals, and launched 113 products and services to solve unmet healthcare needs.

The Vanguard Initiative (VI) is an association that brings together a large and growing number of European regions, starting with the most industrialized ones, that have an interest in developing synergies by pooling their regional strategies for smart specialization. The association's goal is to stimulate intra-regional collaborations for industrial innovation and create new value chains at the European level on primary technological thematic areas such as: Artificial Intelligence, biotechnology, sustainable and efficient manufacturing, nanotechnology, 3D printing, smart medical devices, off-shore renewables and hydrogen. The Emilia-Romagna Region is a founder member of the VI association, ART-ER, which performs a supporting function for the entire regional innovation ecosystem, participates as Associated Member.