Joint Innovation Challenges 2025

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From clinic to couch – when medtech goes Netflix

The concept of “owning” something is quickly being replaced by “accessing” it. We stream movies, rent e-scooters, and even lease furniture. Now imagine doing the same with medical devices.

What if you could rent a smart breathing monitor for a week? Or borrow a soft robotic device to rehab your elbow at home – no hospital visit, no wallet shock? What happens when medtech meets the subscription economy? This opens doors to more affordable, personalized care, especially outside of clinical settings, but these models also raise new questions:

• Can this model make healthcare more accessible – or does it come with high risks?

• How do you build trust, privacy, and reliability into this model?

• What would your version of the “Netflix of health” look like?

Student hype squads – turning innovation into movement

Imagine that, as a University, you’ve launched an education method that actually helps students remember – not just until the exam, but for life. It’s fresh. It’s innovative. It could reshape how students learn, but only if they know about it.

Still, how do you make everyone – students, lecturers, even prospective applicants – actually care? Spoiler: posters won’t cut it. What if students themselves became the champions of change? When students talk, other students listen:

• How can we turn them into storytellers, influencers, or even ambassadors of this educational shift?

• How do you get students excited enough to promote something academic?

• And how can their involvement boost the university’s image beyond campus walls?

Trust me, I’m data-intelligent healthcare

Healthcare systems are generating more data than ever before by every heartbeat tracked, every prescription filled, every hospital check-in. But raw data alone isn’t enough. To unlock its full potential, it needs to be cleaned, connected, and made intelligent.

Imagine a healthcare data marketplace — a digital space where anonymized data is safely exchanged between hospitals, research centers, and innovators. But how do we make this possible? We're talking about building smarter, automated systems that can improve the quality, consistency, and market value of healthcare data, but this raises many questions:

• What would a smart, secure, and ethical healthcare data marketplace look like?

• What kind of technologies already exist to clean and validate data?

• Can automation boost trust in the system – and can better data lead to better care?

Eco-heroes for smart heating

The catalytic “green” brick and chimney are award-winning inventions developed to reduce CO and particle emissions from wood-burning stoves, fireplaces and chimneys. These are retrofit, modular, cost-effective, and even DIY-friendly – so could be game-changers for millions of outdated heating systems across Europe. There’s even potential for smart home integration.

However, who are the people who’d use these modular products? Are they eco-conscious homeowners? Tech-savvy smart home fans? DIY fireplace or luxury lovers? And what about those who’d never even think about it – yet desperately need it? Before innovation can go global, we have to understand the person behind it:

• What motivates them: cleaner air, lower bills, smart tech, stricter regulation or simple installation?

• Where and how should this product be promoted – in a hardware store, online marketplace, or through government programs?

• What kind of smart home applications would actually interest users?