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EU S(p)eedkits

S(P)EEDKITS: European research into rapidly deployable, modular and lightweight ‘emergency response units’.

The European Union initiates a 4-year research project into rapidly deployable, modular and lightweight emergency response units. This so-called S(P)EEDKITS project brings together fifteen European partners who will scan current equipment and bottlenecks with respect to emergency kits.

In the fourth year, novel materials and concepts will be presented to drastically reduce volume and weight for transportation. This will increase the speed of delivery. These solutions will also be usable for the long-term recovery after a disaster. Such long-term solutions are also known as seed kits.

When disaster strikes, it is extremely important that the victims get help as soon as possible. Humanitarian organisations, like the International Red Cross and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), have sleeping emergency response units (ERU’s) which start acting immediately after disaster strikes. Each ERU has a specific function, including medical care, sanitation, energy provision or water supply.

Development of emergency response units
S(P)EEDKITS will develop emergency kits that will reduce volume and weight drastically through research into new materials and concepts. This project will provide kits that can be pre-positioned and mobilized very quickly and easily, that are modular and adaptable, low cost and high-tech in their conceptions but low-tech in use.

Demonstration Phase
In a second phase S(P)EEDKITS will demonstrate the new materials and concepts to aid future interventions faster and more efficiently for transportation. These kits can be inserted in an affected area, city, improvised camp or rural region to regain as quickly as possible ‘temporary’ economic and social life.

Partners
The project is sponsored by the EU FP7 programme and is coordinated by Centexbel. It will be implemented by a consortium of partners from six different European countries with diverse expertise:

A part of the research leading to this product was supported by S(P)EEDKITS.EU S(P)EEDKITS has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no 284931

RESERVIST EU Horizon 2020

Project Launched: Towards a Rapid Manufacturing Response to Spikes in Medical Products and Services Demand

Vaassen, the Netherlands, December 3rd, 2020. Hospitainer, manufacturer of rapid mobile healthcare solutions, is a partner of RESERVIST, a Horizon 2020 project starting today. Hospitainer , together with the other European partners, aims to repurpose manufacturing lines to respond to crisis needs.

December 1st 2020

Today, the HORIZON 2020 project RESERVIST starts. The 17 European partners, representative of both the industry and research sector, began planning their activities to achieve an ambitious goal. They aim to establish a network of ‘reservist cells’ to activate surge manufacturing when standard production lines cannot respond to the demand for medical products.  

The need for similar structures became apparent earlier this year when the health systems faced considerable challenges in provisioning medical supplies, e.g. personal protective equipment, ventilators etc. This made it difficult to provide healthcare to millions of EU citizens, in turn. 

In response to this reality, RESERVIST aims to create a network that provides continuous manufacturing and service in the healthcare supply chain during emergencies. To achieve that, industry and research partners will work together to build cross-sectoral networks and tap into the worldwide maker community. 

“RESERVIST is a great opportunity to improve the resilience of production lines, enabling the industry to respond to fluctuations in market demand in case of an emergency or other trigger events”, said Guy Buyle, Manager EU Research at Centexbel, the lead partner of RESERVIST.  

RESERVIST’s main legacy will be a network of partners able to repurpose production lines to provide personal protection, respiratory and medical disinfection equipment to the health system. Easier said than done, however. Partners will establish the backbone network and set up a coordination system to ensure efficient logistics and aligned manufacturing in case of emergency. Meanwhile, partners will develop new materials and tweak production facilities, including rapid testing and certification capacities for the resulting products. The network backbone will be eventually embedded into the partners’ structure, remaining idle until activation is necessary.  

To reach its ambitious goal, RESERVIST relies on each partner’s expertise. Hospitainer brings its knowledge in manufacturing mobile field hospitals that are rapidly deployable. Hospitainer will contribute to RESERVIST by sharing expertise and experience, by sharing scenario development, preparing a demo case and creating designs for bigger constructions for different scenarios. Hospitainer will share expertise form field experience, do’s and don’ts and requirements from the field. 

The RESERVIST consortium includes four large enterprises and seven SMEs, in addition to four research centres and two innovation networks. The intersectoral nature of the project also emerges from the disciplines of the partners’ expertise, that range from healthcare, textiles, manufacturing and engineering to digitalisation, design, certification, software platforms and modelling. 

About RESERVIST 

The RESERVIST project is co-funded by the Horizon 2020 programme of the European Union under grant agreement n°101016041. It will last 24 months and started on December 1, 2020. RESERVIST has a consortium of 17 partners from 7 EU countries and is coordinated by Centexbel, the Belgian research centre for textiles and plastics. 

For more information, please contact

Peter Hazendonk

COO at Hospitainer 

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