Case Study: A Man-Made Blue Zone in the Netherlands
This case analysis shows how inter-organizational collaborations can lead to improvements in policymaking and real-world outcomes. It looks at how the Healthy Ageing Network Northern Netherlands (HANNN) was created as a 'triple-helix' network organization with partners in research institutes, government bodies, and businesses.
How can more collaborations like this lead to sustainable innovation for societies?
Healthy Aging Also The Focus Of The University Of Groningen
The University of Groningen, founded in 1614, is an ambitious international research university (ARWU ranking position in 2017 – 59, up from 72 in 2016 – puts it in the top 1 percent of global universities) with strong roots in the Northern Netherlands. In its strategic plan of 2010, the University of Groningen formulated three research priority areas for societal impact: Energy, Sustainable Society, and Healthy Aging.
The university creates and shares knowledge through outstanding research and education, and thus benefits society. The Healthy Aging programmes across the various faculties allow for the initiation of new entities at the crossroads of expertise areas, e.g, the Center of Expertise Healthwise (a collaboration between the Faculty of Economics and Business and UMCG), in which research is conducted in the field of Health(care) Economics, Business, and Management. Research topics include quality, safety, and patient logistics, organizational change, e-health, pensions, the mechanisms of the healthcare market, and consumer behavior in the use of medication.