We don't work in politics or wish to. However, bringing innovation and social promotion is often mainly dependent of policy change. With all the differences between regions, countries and public systems, one size does not fit all. Policy change requires a complex, bureaucratic and long process, implies connecting a broad network of actors and moreover, implies finding public commitments - not that easy! SHINE's team has a solid experience and a wide network of contacts both in national and international contexts. We can help you to find the better way through and the right way to build your policy claims. Together, we can indeed change the world, a bit at a time.
Everyday some new challenges arise and we have very scarce resources to tackle them all. Any kind of innovation or intervention needs to be assessed if it pretends to be adopted and scaled-up. Unfortunately, this does not happen in all situations, even in Government decisions. We believe it is also our duty as citizens to require for all decisions to be properly and seriously evaluated, especially in terms of their impacts for resource allocation and people's benefits. Only in this way we are certain that the best decisions are taken for our future. However, making economic and societal impacts monitoring, assessment and evaluation is not an easy task and requires scientific expertise to be widely accepted and duly considered for future decisions. In several themes we can directly do it or, if necessary, we can find the right experts in Europe to help you build your evaluation plan and report.
Ethics is very tricky. It is not evident in our lives but it is intrinsic to all the decisions we make. It directly connects to what is right and wrong and has a huge link to our values and moral. In a rapidly changing world, more than ever before, Ethics needs to be the cornerstone of all decisions. Whatever we decide to do, whatever our role - in personal life, in our jobs, in citizenship decisions, in all our human facets - our decisions must always be taken with the purpose of higher good. But all of this seems to be a more philosophical discussion and very distant from business decisions. In many situations, mainly when implemented innovations and technological solutions, Ethics may even be seen as an obstacle, a delaying factor or an impediment to breakthrough. SHINE knows exactly how to place Ethics at the centre of your pathway without constraining your operations and making sure you find the best way to provide your services while complying with an impeccable ethical behaviour. This is one of our core assets and one of our main interests, so for sure we can work with you on this area for a solid achievement.
Popular wisdom says we can do anything as long as we are healthy. If this was true for the past generations, it is for sure not true for ours and Millennials will have a new Health paradigm to deal with. Demographic changes, the extension of life expectancy and the bigger challenges of modern life have built a triangle of forces that created a new "persona" as our typical citizen. He or she now lives until its 80s, having chronic diseases since the late 40s or early 50s. Consumes several medications on a regular basis and is conscient about the need of having a good nutrition and regular exercise, but many times does not find the best way to incorporate this on an everyday basis. Creating healthier lifestyles, feasible and realistic for the personal and professional demands of the 21st century, is still a challenge and SHINE tries every day to find and test new models that can respond to it. Either through the development or broad adoption of digital tools or by creating, participating or disseminating new and important scientific knowledge, SHINE wants to promote, in all ways possible, a society where:
Most of public funding and even public concern related to Ageing goes to the sustainability of the Health systems and the capability to bring innovation to the sector, namely on e-Health. However, ageing (and the demographic challenges as a whole) is a multicomplex phenomenon that cannot be addressed with simple or single solutions. On one hand, there is the need to work on the Ageing theme promoting its understanding, not as a problem, but as an opportunity. The increase of the ageing population is forcing society to adapt very rapidly to new demands, but can also create and imply new markets and trends, additional knowledge, new economic niches that can be explored. On the other side, the challenges it raises have also to be understood in a life-course approach, investing on prevention measures in all areas that may imply better quality of life - health, social care, community support, buildings and public spaces, transports, participation and social relations, following the WHO model for age-friendly communities and connecting it to the Smart Cities approach. SHINE is also deeply engaged in promoting a smooth introduction of technology in society, especially with the older population, dealing with the different aspects it implies - ethics, literacy, acceptance, usability and design, amongst others.
SHINE's main goal is to promote inclusive societies for all. This includes gender, race, age, personal opinions and lifestyles and so many others, with shared responsibilty between all citizens and within democratic values. This is not restricted to awareness raising, advocating for the most fragile citizens and calling up the public attention to all the needs for extra care and specific interventions. All that is important, but what we really foster is to help imagining a society that is already built taking into consideration the different needs of all citizens and creating holistic solutions that can help them to be happy and have a fulfilled life. In this concept we include:
We want to guarantee citizens' rights, but also promote their ability to fulfil their duties in society, as this is the only way to guarantee the construction of a balanced and fair society for all.
Although this is not the core focus of SHINE, and we don't intend to compete with tech startups and companies, the creation, development or adaptation of simple IT solutions is also one of our key assets. Whenever it makes sense to provide an integrated solution for a societal challenge that can be adequately addressed by a digital product, e.g. an app, a game or a platform, SHINE has the expertise to deliver it too. What are the gains? We can talk both languages and approach the different worlds -technological, societal and research and bridge the gap that so many times makes innovation fail in the final run.
Big data and the new gold are now expressions that completely entered the everyday world, even for the more illiterate or less tech-savvy. The world is going through a very rapid and drastic change in communication and accessibility to knowledge. We are all connected now and all we do and produce is registered forever and can be accessed in real time and in ways the common citizen doesn't even imagine. If this collection of data can be life-changing for research purposes - when we get to aggregate it conveniently - it is simultaneously a huge temptation for commercial use, bringing potential risks for people's privacy, safety and freedom. It is of paramount importance that society achieves a balance where it can make the best use of data for all the right reasons, such as preventive medicine, but also guaranteeing that citizen's rights are not abused. Citizen-centred approaches to data governance and sharing must be duly explored and essayed, not only to raise awareness on citizens and increase their literacy level and participation in such decisions, but also to experiment different solutions, weighing their pros and cons and being able to evolve to balanced and fair models.
