The ERDF strengthens the health ecosystem in Brussels, which plays an important role in its socioeconomic growth

The ERDF’s mission is to promote sustainable development by investing in various socio-economic projects. It encourages research, innovation, and job creation, offering a response to such multicultural challenges as multiculturalism, the casualisation of certain target groups, and the lack of specific competences.

In Brussels, the ERDF invests in projects to promote the development of an ecosystem for health services to people, which is a strategic priority for the region.

 

ONCO-TRA.bru: an oncology training platform

ONCO-TRA.bru develops oncology training programmes. As cancer patients are increasingly reliant on home treatment, these training courses were developed for all players in the Brussels health ecosystem, including health professionals, jobseekers and patients.

 

 

City Labs : facilitating the diagnosis and follow-up of chronic diseases

The City Labs project aims to facilitate access to new rapid tests for the prevention, detection, and monitoring of chronic diseases. The project promotes patient comfort, by shortening the times for care and treatment and working with laboratories that are located near hospitals. 

 

 

Doctors of the World: integrated care for vulnerable target audiences

Doctors of the World already set up a social centre in Brussels, to better integrate vulnerable people in the health system. In a second phase, Doctors of the World is now setting up two integrated health centres, in Molenbeek and Anderlecht respectively. These will centralise all the existing services in various sectors (social, mental health, family planning, debt mediation, support services for drug addicts, primary health care) under one roof. Such centres play an important role in the Brussels health ecosystem, in light of the casualisation of certain target groups.

 

Divers Elderly Care: care for the culturally diverse group of the elderly

Divers Elderly Care is an applied research project for monitoring the health of elderly people from various cultural backgrounds. The project is deployed in several different phases, ranging from raising awareness, to prevention and diagnosis, before defining the most appropriate treatment methods.

 

 

Alife: towards an inclusive health sector in Brussels

A project of lifetech.brussels (hub.brussels), Alife aims to develop an inclusive health sector in the Brussels-Capital Region, by establishing links between business owners, care providers, hospitals, experts, and patients. Alife oversees acceleration programmes for entrepreneurs and researchers in the fields of digital health and medical devices, to boost projects and adapt them to the reality on the ground as much as possible.

 

 

Metrolab Brussels: providing support for urban research

Metrolab Brussels is a transdisciplinary and inter-university laboratory. Its scientific programme revolves around three major fields of research, that are linked to sustainable urban development, namely urban inclusion, ecology and production.

 

 

New partnerships and synergies

Interoperability exists between all the players in the health ecosystem. As such, it is vital that building bridges is encouraged, to evolve towards a more coherent system. As Arnaud Termonia, the Director of the Health Cluster of the Université libre de Bruxelles and the manager of the ONCO-TRA.bru project explains, “the fact that the university is located in the city, means that research and education activities take place in the city but also contributes to the university’s civic engagement to transfer knowledge and skills to citizens. The ERDF initiatives promote better interaction and help create new synergies.”

Metrolab Brussels, City Labs and Doctors of the World work together, for example, to determine the right location for their projects. New proposals are also mentioned, such as the intention of a collaboration between Divers Elderly Care and Doctors of the World.

Find more detailed information about the health ecosystem on the portal of the Brussels-Capital Region.