Pervasive Healthcare in the Danish Healthcare Services
New Project of the Danish Board of Technology
The potentials of integrating Pervasive Healthcare in the Healthcare Services are promising because of the technology's ability to transcend time and place. In the coming years, the Danish Health Services will face challenges such as a changed composition of age in the population, more chronically ill people, new images of diseases that increase the need for preventive measures, changes in diseases related to life style, and the appearance of new treatments. Pervasive Healthcare can potentially comply with such changes that are expected to increase the demand for health performances in the future.
The project aims to create a general view of the potentials and perspectives in Pervasive Healthcare, including a definition and a demarcation of the concept as well as the consideration of possible consequences and problems following an implementation.
The Danish Board of Technology appoints an interdisciplinary working group for generating an overview of the possible, concrete health performances and outline the perspectives that will be the result of an implementation of Pervasive Healthcare. The course of the project will also include a workshop, where interested parties of the health sector get an opportunity to contribute to the discussion. Finally, interviews with a group of citizens will create an overview about the wishes, worries and attitudes towards the technology among citizens.
Contact: Anders Jacobi, project manager, aj@tekno.dk, www.tekno.dk

Participatory Methods Toolkit
A practitioner's methodological manual
‚Participation' has become a buzzword in government statements and policy papers and the concept is being given concrete shape. But how can participation be organised? What methods are available and when and how are they applied? What are the implications for the budget and staff? To offer a few answers to these questions, the King Baudouin Foundation and viWTA (The Vlaams Instituut voor Wetenschappelijk en Technologisch Aspectenonderzoek, an independent and autonomous institute, associated with the Flemish Parliament) joined forces and shared their expertise. Nikki Slocum (United Nations University) used these materials to put together a toolkit on participatory methods (in English.) It contains a presentation of ten methods (e.g. World Café, Citizens' Jury, Consensus Conference, Expert Panel), a step-by-step, hands-on manual, with detailed checklists and realistic expectations of outcomes. You can download a free copy here. 

 

Post-Forum brochure "Questions of Science"
This brochure is a kaleidoscope of the points view expressed at the "Science in Society Forum" held in March 2005. Now it is available in English, French and German but will be available soon in other EU languages and some non-European languages.
English, PDF 2.1 MB, Français, PDF 3.3 MB
Deutsch, PDF 3.3 MB

Meeting of Minds
Biggest-ever public science consultation warns of potential misuse of brain research
Meeting of Minds is the first European-wide public consultation on brain science. It is a new, ambitious and lively way of involving the general public in debates about issues of cutting-edge science. Nationals from a diverse array of European countries have, over the past year, immersed themselves in a melting pot of ideas and discoveries about the brain. Coming from cultures ranging from the UK to Hungary, they have had to overcome their differences to reach a consensus about our new-found knowledge of the brain
The conclusions were reached using the European Citizens´ Deliberation, a unique experiment in the techniques of participatory democracy in which 12 European organisations, led by the King Baudouin Foundation of Belgium, pooled their expertise in public consultation. They randomly selected 126 laypeople from across Europe who then interviewed some of the Continent's leading brain scientists, neurosurgeons and psychiatrists as well as pressure groups and patients' associations.
The recommendations of this process were presented at the European Parliament to decision makers of the European Union on January 23. They should help to shape science and health policy at the European and national level and will come at an opportune moment for guiding formulation of the European Commission's 7th Framework Programme.
The Meeting of minds project report tackles many pressing issues arising in the field of brain science. It also calls on governments to boost education and training on these issues.
Download the report here
More information at www.meetingmindseurope.org

Citizen Participation in practice- case studies from Africa
In November 2005, the fourth of a series of regional workshops was held in Zimbabwe, Africa. Participants from Botswana, Zambia, Malawi and Zimbabwe discussed citizen participation in local governance and presented case studies on "The Role of Ward Development Committees" (Botswana), "The Basis of Participatory Practice in Zimbabwe's Urban Councils", "Participation in the fight against HIV and Aids" (Malawi), and "Engaging Communities in Water and Sanitation Environmental Programmes" (Zambia).
http://www.toolkitparticipation.nl/
The full workshop report can be downloaded here.

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