New Delhi: The Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), the Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development (ZonMw) will open a joint call for proposals in December 2016. The topic of the call is technology for a ‘Sustainable Healthcare: Minimally invasive techniques’. This programme offers funding opportunities for joint research cooperation between Dutch and Indian research groups.
This call for proposals sets out information about the possibilities for submitting applications, the conditions that applications must meet and the procedure for assessing the applications.
The aim of the call for proposals is to stimulate sustainable Indian-Dutch research collaboration by funding joint research projects in the area of medical devices that have the explicit goal to contribute to a more sustainable health care either in India or in The Netherlands. The aim is to develop innovative technology for a sustainable healthcare system. We define sustainable healthcare as a high quality system that is affordable and accessible for every individual, and affordable and sufficiently staffed for society as a whole.
Three strategic questions to address are:
- How can technology support health and wellbeing of people in order to help them function and participate in society, outside of organized care? The point is to focus on health rather than healthcare. By focusing on prevention, health and wellbeing you will reduce the need for professional healthcare.
- How can technology enable care to be delivered closer to home? In many cases it is more cost effective and better for patients to deliver care outside of care institutions. Chronic care should not be managed in hospitals. Rehabilitation should take place closer to home or even at home.
- How can technology enable more efficient and personalized care? Technology enables us to do more with less. Technology can allow early and individualized diagnosis and prognosis, less invasive treatment and change work processes all together.
Besides providing solutions to above questions, an additional goal is to stimulate the Dutch and Indian research fields of medical devices on minimally invasive techniques.
