FBK projects awarded by the VRT Foundation for relevance and impact

THE IMPACT OF RESEARCH FROM PNRR TO PEOPLE is the title of the public meeting that took place on November 30, 2021 at the headquarters of the CARITRO Foundation in TRENTO and online.The conference was also attended remotely by Prof. Maria Cristina Messa, minister of university and research.

During the event, some best practices supported by the VRT Foundation were awarded. These were selected from among 52 projects funded overall, taking into consideration their relevance, originality and ability to bring concrete benefits to a large portion of citizens in a short time.

In particular, two working groups made up of FBK researchers and a company, Euleria, of which some researchers of the Foundation are part of, were awarded.

1. Stefano Merler and Valentina Marziano received recognition for their contribution to the study  and the management of the pandemic crisis. With a video message, the researcher of the Italian National Institute of Health Patrizio Pezzotti commented as follows: “the algorithms developed by FBK have been critical for the development of public health measures useful for controlling the epidemic”. The scholar later on referred to the two scientific articles published on PNAS (regarding the impact scenarios of summer openings in 2020) and on NATURE Communications (regarding the effectiveness of the color coded zones for the autumn/winter season (2020-2021), indications that have been translated into government decisions that have made it possible to “limit closures while minimizing hospitalizations and deaths with no lockdown in place.
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2. Stefano Forti and Giulia Malfatti, with the televisits project, which allowed the large-scale implementation of a more regular remote monitoring of patients. One of the areas explored is cardiology (through the TreC-Cardiology digital health system), in which the concept of “on demand clinic” has been applied in which human contact was mediated by remote eye contact and chat that have been instrumental in maintaining a high standard of care and relationship during the pandemic and lay the groundwork for further applications.
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3. Euleria – Solutions for patient rehabilitation, from the clinic to home – produces medical devices and solutions to analyze movement and make patient rehabilitation and tele-rehabilitation more measurable, accessible and motivating. The awarded working group includes Silvia Gabrielli and Rosa Maoimone, who work at the FBK – Digital Health center.

Journalist and writer Paolo Morando was the moderator of the discussion as well as the editor of the issue “Research that helps people”, published by il Mulino, which will be distributed as of early 2022. Through this publication, the VRT Foundation has tried to tell the vision that inspired it in these three years of activity: “We live in a context in rapid, relentless and constant evolution. In this tragic period, over 60 million Italians and over 500,000 Trentino residents benefited, directly and indirectly, from the research and skills present in Trentino.”