E-technologies for e-Health and Assistance for loss of Autonomy: The Important Role of University Networks through International Joint Degrees

International audienceTo face the socio-economic and medico-social problems of elderly and disabled people, many territories in many countries have started local initiatives to find technical, medical, social and economical issues. In this frame, universities clearly have an increasing important role to play through many aspects: - Universities can provide new specific trainings with new diplomas relative to assistive technologies including e-health (telecare and telemedecine) and also ICT systems (including home automation). - Through research and academic exchange programs, universities networks can provide new joint diplomas dealing with common territorial problems, for example through Erasmus and Erasmus Mundus programs. To face the problems of elderly and disabled people in a rural environment, the district of Guéret (department of Creuse in France) has created the "Home automation and Health Pole". The aim is to drive a coherent action plan in terms of comfort, safety, autonomy and communication for the elderly and disabled people. In cunjunction, the University of Limoges now proposes since september 2008, a BSc degree dedicated to "Home automation for elderly and disabled people" based on the use of e-technologies together with home automation techniques. Many industrial partners are involved in the academic program of the BSC to make sure it fits the job market requirements. To emphasize as much as possible the benefit of its diplomas, the University of Limoges is also resolutely committed to expanding its international cooperation, at different levels: - Through students and faculty mobility (through Erasmus and Leonardo programs) - Through educational programs with the development of innovative joint diplomas The objective is to build new educational and research cooperative networks to share experiments and competences in technical and social domains. At the first level, the "Home automation for elderly and disabled people" BSC has set up agreements (mostly through Erasmus) with partner universities to provide work placements abroad : - VIA college university in Horsens, Denmark, - DOMUS laboratory at the University of Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada, - TUSUR Tomsk State University of Control Systems and Radioelectronics in Tomsk, Russia, - Bogazici University (University of Bosphorus) in Istanbul, Turkey. Six of the 24 BSc students will do their internships in these partner universities in 2010. At the second level, the next step is now to build a new international joint Master diploma in the field of "Intelligent decisional systems for people in loss of autonomy". This project has started initially within the frame of the Franco-Norwegian Åsgard program. This program is intended to: * stimulate exchanges between France and Norway in terms of the expertise and scientific competences, * emphasize the initiatives of cooperation in research & development, * enable French and Norwegian researchers to extend their own international networks. In this Master diploma project, several partner universities (from France, Belgium, Denmark and Norway) are now in the process of building together a complete master academic program for a new diploma opening in September 2012. Details of the BSc and MSc academic programs, and examples of scientific and technical experiments will be given at the conference to illustrate the fallout of the university network in terms of educational, social, industrial and research aspects