The SUDOE is a demographically aged territory and in its rural inland areas there is a situation of growing depopulation that leads to disappearance.
Examples of these territories with low population density are the regions of Castilla y León (Spain), Beira Baixa (Portugal) and Pays Basque (France). COVID has highlighted the lack of health and care for people in these rural areas, especially the elderly and dependents. On the other hand, the difficulty of finding market niches in which to develop sustainable economic activity leads young people and highly qualified professionals to move to the cities, further weakening the rural environment within SUDOE.
The common challenge and need of these inland rural areas is to revitalise their economic and social fabric, promoting employment opportunities that solve social challenges from the perspective of innovation, combining social needs with development opportunities.
REVITAL seeks to cover the need to provide specialized health care and physical and neurological rehabilitation services (especially to dependent and elderly people), through technological tools that allow tele-care and tele-rehabilitation services to be offered, which will also contribute to creating qualified employment and fixing a new population that will boost the rural economy.
The project has a clear strategic orientation towards strengthening social cohesion and territorial and demographic balance through social innovation and endogenous development. The challenges and needs to be met are clear: to respond to the depopulation and ageing of inland rural areas by establishing a new population with social and health training, to prevent elderly and dependent people from having to migrate to urban areas to access advanced clinical services, as well as to develop sustainable production systems based on tele-care and tele-rehabilitation technologies, responding to social needs that are not sufficiently covered in the field of social and health care services.
The Innovative Solutions for Independent Living Cluster (SIVI) coordinates this project, which has the participation of the Social Services Management of Castilla y León, San Cebrián Foundation, GOGOA Mobility Robots, École Supérieure des Technologies Industrielles Avancées (ESTIA), University of DEUSTO, Etablissement Public de Santé de GARAZI, Associação Empresarial da Beira Baixa (AEBB) and the Polytechnic Institute of Castelo Branco (IPCB) that make up the complete consortium.
Project code S1/4.5/E0037
ERDF amount approved: €1,598,331.75
Project funded by the Interreg VI-B Sudoe programme. 1st Sudoe call 2021-2027