Pharaon Ethics Board led by Caritas Coimbra meets for the 1st time
As part of the European project PHARAON (financed by the Horizon 2020 Program), the project’s Ethics Board, chaired by Caritas Coimbra, met on the 19th May. Pharaon Ethics Board is composed by representatives from each of the 6 large-scale pilots to be implemented at the end of the current year, 8 experts external to the consortium and 8 representatives of the end users of the PHARAON solution.
This meeting was moderated by Sofia Ortet of the Innovation Department (and Chair of the Committee), with the presence of 19 participants. It aimed essentially to:
- Present the different members, as well as the role of the Ethics Board in the project;
- Analyze the progress of the project’s ethical tasks to date, namely the current status of ethical requests / approvals to the competent authorities, for each pilot site;
- Check the documents and ethical procedures related to the pre-validation activities in all pilot sites, namely the main ethical topics to be considered in the elaboration of informed consent for the participants of each pilot study (to be adapted and reviewed by each pilot, in the respective native language).
- Plan the main ethical risks and respective mitigation actions in advance for the implementation of each validation pilot, scheduled for September 2021.
The next steps in the scope of the project’s ethics tasks will include specific training on ethical procedures and instruments for all consortium partners to be held on the 28th of May. PHARAON Ethics Board will meet again after the implementation of the pre-validation pilots and before the large-scale pilots themselves, for a further update of the project’s ethical purposes.
Pharaon project – Pilots for Healthy and Active Ageing intends to develop integrated platforms that allow personalized and optimized care in terms of health and social assistance, maintaining the dignity of older people and encouraging their independence, security and abilities. In addition, it intends to foster its interest in the nearest urban natural areas, as well as its active participation in the preservation of the environment. To this end, it proposes to integrate services, devices and digital tools on open platforms that can be readily implemented on the ground.
Pharaon consortium is made up of 42 European entities and the project received a total investment of 21.5 million euros, financed by the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program of the European Union, under the Grant Contract No. 857188.
