Development of innovative technology for informal care
The BMBF is funding an interdisciplinary accompanying project at Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences.
Around 80 percent of the 4.1 million people currently in need of care in Germany are cared for in their own homes. The main burden of this care is borne by relatives and other informal caregivers. To relieve the burden on these groups, there is increasing discussion about how digital services can provide support with care. However, socio-technical innovations can only provide real added value if they meet the diverse needs of the target group of informal carers as well as the specific care settings - a challenge that requires the early involvement of informal carers in the development of technological approaches.
The project “Participation and Co-Creation for Innovative Technologies for Informal Caregivers and Care Communities”—PiTiPS for short—funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), is dedicated to addressing this need. Led by the Institute for Multimedia and Interactive Systems (IMIS) at the University of Lübeck, the PiTiPS project brings together expertise from research and practice (social sciences, nursing, behavioral sciences, gerontology, participation research, and technology research) with the perspectives of representatives of informal caregivers in order to systematically integrate the diversity of informal care into research and design processes. Through this transdisciplinary approach, the project aims to identify the conditions necessary for the successful integration of informal caregivers in a wide variety of care contexts—such as the care of chronically ill children, care in rural areas, or care provided by young adults, and to directly support other research and development projects in achieving this integration.
"Involving and empowering informal carers more in the development of support technologies relevant to them is highly relevant in a society that wants to shape both demographic and technological change in the interests of carers and vulnerable groups. We are delighted to be able to contribute to this with the Institute for Health, Ageing, Work and Technology and will focus in particular on informal carers in rural areas and older people." Dr. Cordula Endter
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"Participatory and co-creative design processes are an essential feature of our future working world and society, which will also play an increasingly important role in the care of older people. Co-creation means that the use of technical innovations is researched on the basis of the needs and preferences with the active involvement of the target group. Technical innovation is important, but the focus is always on people! The benefits for people and society are the decisive criterion for the success of co-creative research." Prof. Dr. Andreas Hoff
”Over the course of its four-year duration, from May 2022 to January 2026, the PiTiPS project will support various collaborative projects in the field of informal care research, with the aim of strengthening approaches and methods for involving informal caregivers in technological innovation. To this end, the project team is pursuing a dual strategy: (1) providing technical infrastructure and scientific knowledge, and (2) analyzing participatory approaches to further develop theoretical models and methods and derive recommendations for action. In two so-called “Participation Labs”—laboratories for implementing participatory methods—participatory formats and co-design, both digital and analog, are tested and implemented. The focus is on active collaboration between the target group—informal caregivers—and experts from the research community to test and refine methods and approaches in various workshops. In addition, a digital “Participation Hub” serves as a platform to initiate and map out shared learning processes. The counseling and support process is complemented by joint research workshops with partner projects from across Germany.
The GAT Institute’s project partners include the Institute for Multimedia and Interactive Systems and the Institute for Social Medicine and Epidemiology at the University of Lübeck, Furtwangen University, the Bavarian Research Center for Digital Care at the Kempten University of Applied Sciences, and “wir pflegen – Interessenvertretung und Selbsthilfe pflegender Angehöriger e.V.”
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