Healthy Ageing in China 2019
In March 2019, the Innovate UK Healthy Ageing Expert Mission travelled to Beijing and Shanghai to gather market insights, explore sustainable collaboration models, align innovation policy direction and unlock regulatory barriers for future international partnerships.
Abstract from outcome report:
The UK and China healthy ageing markets share key similarities as both countries have a growing population of senior citizens with increasingly complex needs, decreasing human resources to provide support, an increasing need to upskill the existing workforce, and increasing demand for better dementia care.
The innovation opportunities in the healthy ageing market in China considered by the mission delegates are those around standards, training, regulation and policy development; new business model development; technology and service innovation; extensive scale product testing and crosscutting impact research. The key market challenges include underdeveloped elderly care infrastructure; workforce issues of resources, training and skills; business culture; and business models. The Chinese government is the most dominant player in the healthy ageing market as it is largely responsible for financing elderly care. Other key market players include service providers, SMEs, insurance providers, universities, IT companies, and investment firms.
There is a keen interest from different Chinese stakeholders in the healthy ageing market to collaborate with UK partners. A joint agreement between the UK and the Chinese government set healthy ageing as the priority area for the 2019 Flagship Challenge. The delegation was very optimistic about the healthy ageing market in China and felt that collaboration between the UK and China would be significant to both countries. There is much to be learnt from a UK-China healthy ageing collaboration.
About Global Expert Missions
The Global Expert Missions (GEM) programme is funded by Innovate UK to support the Industrial Strategy’s ambition for the UK to be the international partner of choice for science and innovation. Led by Innovate UK KTN, GEMs play an important role in building strategic partnerships, providing deep insight into the opportunities for UK innovation and shaping future bilateral collaboration programmes.