Formal NHS partner InnoScot Health is urging other organisations to join a new matchmaking platform aimed at ‘building a borderless European digital health innovation ecosystem’ as part of the £17m UNITE consortium

Earlier this year, Scotland was named sole UK collaborator on the major pan-European programme aimed at transforming healthcare through improved digital innovation.

Co-funded by the EU, UNITE is bringing together a diverse group of partners to collaborate on the development of innovative digital solutions and address pressing healthcare challenges, with Scottish Enterprise among those selected to take an international lead.

The transformative £17 million programme will be opening calls for proposals in the autumn to “cascade funding to highly innovative European companies”.

These calls, UNITE says, will support startups, scale-ups, and SMEs in delivering deep tech solutions that can bridge regional innovation gaps, enhance Europe’s global competitiveness, and improve equity of access to healthcare.

Now, the programme has opened access to B2 Match, the digital matchmaking tool being used to help find collaborators across UNITE’s European network. InnoScot Health believes it represents a valuable opportunity to find, connect, and network with relevant partners across other UNITE geographies.

InnoScot Health’s Innovation Commercialisation Manager, Fiona Schaefer said: “For the UNITE programme to successfully realise ambitions of creating borderless digital health innovation ecosystems for Europe, then it needs to harness simple ways to connect organisations and companies across the supply chain.

“B2 Match has a track record of helping to bring European partners together and is now helping to promote interregional collaboration through targeted matchmaking closely aligned with shared challenges and opportunities.

“Stakeholders from the public and private sectors, academia, and civil society are invited to register, engage, and collaborate. It’s an easy and straightforward process with much to potentially gain in pooling know-how to develop breakthrough innovation which could help to mitigate such internationally recognised issues as ageing populations.”

Fiona added: “Joining B2 Match and finding suitable partners for transformational innovation means the chance to build strong, competitive consortia for upcoming UNITE funding opportunities, as well as being part of matchmaking events. It’s a key element of an exciting initiative and we are pleased to have signed up so that others can reach out and access our trusted expertise.”

The following types of organisations are encouraged to participate in B2 Match:

• Startups, scaleups, SMEs, large companies, investors
• Universities, research institutions, innovation centres, incubators, accelerators
• Hospitals, clinics, healthcare service providers
• Patient and health associations, NGOs, public authorities

Over 100 European participants have already registered, with around a quarter of those coming from Scotland and the wider UK.

The ambition is for that number to reach around 50 by the time the first UNITE call goes live in October.

A Scotland-specific UNITE event is also planned for the same month with InnoScot Health expected to attend.