DC NOISE aims to deal with demographic change related issues, namely labour market, service provision and housing issues by developing transferable action strategies in the North Sea Region.
The project activities include the creation of a transnational housing atlas which contributes to the implementation of transferable and innovative housing approaches and a regional level statistical monitoring system including demographic data and indicators, as well as themes such as ‘DC and the impact on the labour market for higher educated', the introduction of a ‘housing ambassador' approach and researching and communicating ‘day to day Information & Communication Technology for people with a mobility handicap'.
All activities contribute to finding mechanisms to reduce job, service and population loss and to promote attractive regions supported by concrete measures to raise the awareness of demographic change in the North Sea Region.
Duration
01/06/2008 - 30/06/2011
Priority
4 - Promoting Sustainable and Competitive Communities
Senator für Umwelt, Bau, Verkehr und Europa Bremen
PlusPunkt GmbH
Johann Daniel Lawaetz-Foundation
United Kingdom
University of Abertay Dundee
Background and Aim
Aim The central aim of the project is to make the North Sea Region ready to cope with its demographic future. That means both dealing with the negative effects of demographic change and at the same time taking advantage of the economic and social opportunities offered by this process.
Within DC NOISE transnational actions will aim to:
Develop and implement pilot actions tackling issues related to new approaches to service delivery,
Develop actions revitalising declining towns and cities in response to demographic trends,
Develop and implement pilot actions tackling opportunities and challenges for economic restructuring, particularly in the fields of health, care and leisure/tourism or social and labour market stabilisation.
Activities and objectives are aimed at raising awareness, finding possible solutions and, in co-operation with stakeholders, strategies and actions to deal with the consequences of demographic change.
Background Demographic change is now recognised as one of the three most significant challenges facing Europe and its regions. The urgency of the situation is highlighted in the Green Paper on Demographic Change (2005) which forecasts an increase in the number of people aged 65+ of more than 50% by 2030 with a reduction in natural population growth across nearly all EU regions.
Demographic change is a particular issue in the North Sea Region, and the implications of this are already becoming apparent. Demographic change consists of different trends: total population decline, diminishing number of young people, shrinking labour force, ageing society, changing ethnic composition of population owing to differential migration, changing household composition.
Facing the demographic challenge through means such as increasing employment rates, integrating legal migrants and shaping infrastructures and services in response to ageing are now widely stated, but have yet to be consistently put into practice.
Together the partners of DC NOISE are facing the challenge and are seeking to develop new approaches in practice and to share the lessons they learn throughout the North Sea Region. The actions that we take will impact on employment opportunities in the region, the competitiveness of the region and on social wellbeing, cohesion and quality of life for individual residents. Together they will truly support the development of sustainable and competitive communities.
Transnational cooperation will be the start of mutual European adjustment in policy answers to demographic change. It helps to bring the subject on the agenda of national and regional authorities and gives financial support, thereby creating the necessary conditions for experiment, finding creative solutions and new strategies, and be ready for the future.
Expected Outcomes
Transnational housing atlas, new housing concepts for elderly,
Monitoring system on demographic change (DC). Regional level statistical monitoring system including demographic data and indicators,
Improved infrastructure for elderly, ICT solutions for service provision for handling and analysing data in relation to monitoring the consequences of demographic change,
An integrated monitoring system on demographic change,
Analysis of the consequences of demographic change. A transnational scenario-logbook,
New strategies to cope with demographic change, such as integration methods for elderly (50+), higher integration- and employment rates, re-education and recruitment of economically vulnerable employees, including youngsters and immigrants,
Strategic document with best practices and advice to influence EU labour market policies.
October 2010 - March 2011
April - September 2010
In Bremen, a competition took place 'Places of the future - only with networks' aimed at involving inhabitants and "unusual" stakeholders who have developed innovative solutions to deal with the demographic change. The competition showed the other DC NOISE partners a methodology on how to reach stakeholders, how to raise awareness and come up with innovative solutions. The contributions are now on a touring exhibition in Bremen Region.
Due to its success in the province of West-Flanders, the age scan has been recognised by the Flemish Government and several transnational projects. The Flemish Government has shown a genuine interest for promoting and extending its use. For example, They are currently considering further development and implementation on a large scale within Flanders of the age scan tool as an online web application.
As part of communication activities a press release was sent to local media in Kristiansand Region, regarding Mentor program in Vennesla. The national broadcaster of Norway, NRK, with its local office at Sørlandet responded to the press release, and made a news story the news bulletin twice on the 7th of September.
October 2009 - March 2010
All of the project partners have been active during the reporting period and work has been undertaken within each of the projects main themes. There have been three project team meetings (Bremen, Ostend, Hamburg) and two partner meetings (in Bremen and Hamburg) in the reporting period. The implementation stage of the project was reflected by the DC NOISE midterm conference which took place on the March 24 2010 in Hamburg.
For the 9 European regions involved in the project a prognoses of demographic decline was discussed. Activities to make actors and companies aware of demographic change and potential problems at the Knowledge park - Kennispark (Twente, Netherlands) took place. East/West Flanders and Hamburg, Germany have been looking at senior employees and their competence in the public sector. Norway working on stimulating workers between 62 and 65 years not to retire. In Groningen, the Netheralnds, activities have taken place regarding attracting new /keeping existing people for health care jobs and instrument for strategic personnel capacity planning. Hamburg worked on a supporting neighbour network and their first results of the social area analysis on the current socio-demographic data are now available. Activity on the transnational pilot on "EU-labour market" taken place and a template for gathering information has been designed.
During the reporting period several members of the Flemish Parliament passed a motion in which the Flemish Government asked to research the consequences of the demographic change. The representatives of the Province of West-Flanders reacted on this motion by handing over a letter to the competent ministers. In this letter the DC NOISE project was explained, and the Flemish demonstration pilots in particular.
The book The Path Ahead was given to members of the Committee of the Regions of the European Union during the meeting about demographic change at November 18, 2009. This led to a contact with the reporter of the Committee of the Regions on the subject of ageing, Mr Rob Bats.He showed interest in the DC NOISE project and would take the content of The Path Ahead into account.
In February 2010 the director of the ZorginnovatieForum(ZIF) (Groningen) visited the European Commission (ICT for Inclusion and DG Sanco) and presented a master programme and the relationship with DC NOISE for stimulating ICT adoption. The Ministry of Internal Affairs (BZK) and the Ministry of Housing, Planning and Environment (VROM), the Netherlands took up the lead in a National agenda on population shrinkage and a national knowledge bank for demographic change. Partners from Twente, Zeeland and Groningen are active members of the project groups involved in this.
April - September 2009
Implementation of activities within the field of the labour market, housing and services as well as raising awareness, monitoring and adaptation strategies for areas of significant population change are recognized by DC NOISE partners as the common priorities. Actions will function as triggers and good examples in the process.
Through the implementation of 24 demonstration pilots and 3 transnational pilots several deliverables are expected:
A major theme in population decline is the issue of 50+ employment and future labour market shortages. To gain more inside in the processes concerned the beneficiaries organised interviews, risk analysis, braindrain prevention and pilot activities. Several beneficiaries put especially effort in health care related challenges because of the relative decrease of the number of (young) people available to work in the health care sector and to keep elderly in their familiar environment as long as possible. It also links with other theme of DC NOISE: service provision. Developments in ICT (helpdesk, domotica) and founding regional service structures (i e meals, transport, nightly checks) for elderly relieve the burden of caretaking relatives and friends.
Several experiences and pilots of the DC NOISE beneficiaries are gathered by housing ambassador, neighbourhood planning competition and workshops and supporting local initiatives of combating decline. The results of the experiences in DC NOISE will be disseminated by a transnational housing atlans and on-line visualisation tool.
Until March 2009
The project started in June 2008 with a visit to Age concern in the UK where all DC NOISE partners got informed about demographic change and the effects on service provision, the labour market and housing. The age proofing toolkit proved to be a very useful tool for DC NOISE partners and was input for the Demographic change test (DC-test) as prepared by West-Flanders.
The period until December 2008 was the starting phase in which partners had to set up the organisations and pilots and in which first transnational knowledge transfers took place (through meetings and internet, as well as bilateral contact). This has also been the phase in which raising awareness on the consequences of demographic change in general and on DC NOISE especially took place.
Today, the transnational pilots are set up and running. The first newsflash of the transnational pilot on EU labour market was published in December 2008. The monitoring experts of VUB-Interface Demography gave feedback on monitoring while visiting the projects that were presented at the partner meeting in Groningen en Twente and led one of the workshops during the start conference.
The set up for the content for the transnational housing atlas was presented during the project team meeting in Zeeland, NL. Partners are collecting existing and potential good examples of innovative housing projects. DC NOISE was presented during an Interreg Seminar in Germany and in the Netherlands. Furthermore, DC NOISE got a prominent place in the national Dutch network on shrinkage, led by the Dutch ministry of internal affairs.
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