Building a shared vision for human-tech collaboration
During November, our partners came together in Madrid for a two-day consortium meeting hosted at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. The gathering brought together academic, clinical, and industry stakeholders from across Europe to take stock of progress, share emerging results and align on the next phase of the project.
Building connections, sharing results
We kicked off with and high-level update on each work package, continuing with an introduction of our newest partners, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and how our collaboration will take place. This addition brings fresh expertise to the project’s next phase, specially as we look towards interventional case studies and policy engagement.
Project coordinator, Stephen Rigney provided a clear snapshot of where we are and where we’re heading. Their session set the stage for Anette Hallin to present early findings from the observational case studies, sparking thoughtful reflections from hospital partners across Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands and Sweden.
Throughout the morning, these hospital voices were front and centre, sharing practical insights, raising key challenges, and helping ground the research in the day-to-day realities of tech adoption in clinical environments.
During the afternoon, the hospital partners headed to visit Ramón y Cajal Hospital while academic partners stayed behind to deep dive into the Human-Tech Complementarity Index led by Laura Piscicelli.
From observations to interventions
The second day opened with reflections from both tracks, hospital visits and index discussions, before moving into the next big milestone: interventional case studies.
Led by Ernestina Menasalvas and Ana Moreno, the group explored criteria for selecting interventions and started mapping out preliminary plans per partner. These discussions laid the foundation for designing impactful, context-specific interventions that respond to the real challenges surfaced in earlier research phases.
During the afternoon, the attention turned to stakeholder engagement, communications, and sustainability. Isis Díaz and Brendan Rowan walked the group through what’s ahead in their work packages, from upcoming roundtables to the development of the TechConnect Toolkit. Stephen Rigney followed with updates on finance and external engagement, including WIDERA Hop On and the External Advisory Board.
We closed the session (and the meeting!) with a wrap-up by Na Fu, reflecting on the value of being in the same room, and the exciting road ahead.
