The purpose of MedTech West is to further develop an existing medical environment into a powerful internationally competitive platform that attracts national and international research as well as regional, national and international researchers, doctors and engineers, to conduct joint research and develop new methodologies from which novel innovations can be identified and developed.
World leading interdisciplinary medical research is conducted in close collaboration with the biomedical engineering industry in order to prepare a natural entry point for collaboration with clinicians and technicians. Academic collaboration naturally means that parts of the work will be undertaken by students, in the form of projects and thesis work, which has benefits for undergraduate and postgraduate level at the cooperative universities. MedTech West thus takes responsibility for the master's program in biomedical engineering offered at Chalmers.
MedTech West works on innovative ideas from health care and academia while evaluating the clinical relevance of technology-driven ideas and thus act as a bridge between clinical and medical skills. It also serves as a link to the incumbent organization's innovation systems.
MedTech West must initially build on existing partnerships within the fields of medical diagnosis, treatment, monitoring and e-health. MedTech West is organized with an openness and transparency of the procedures for admission of new projects and partners.
Activities will focus on applied medical care based research, in collaboration with the medical device industry. For businesses MedTech West acts as an attractive playing field for research collaborations in the network of industry partners, health care and academia. It can also be used for contract research and clinical testing. The highly specialized care in Sweden is characterized by a highly developed and trustful cooperation between different clinical specialties, and this ability to easily carry out multi-disciplinary work has contributed to several small and large international companies (eg Unilever R & D, Kappametrics, Nexstim) that have sought biomedical engineering development in cooperation with the Department of Clinical Neurophysiology SU. MedTech West intends to provide uniform, clear ground rules for such interaction, as well as skills and consulting relating to contracts, security and medical safety. An important role is thus to act as a link for making the clinical environment available for established businesses who want to test new ideas or are in need of clinical validation of new products or concepts. MedTech West is also important for formulating projects and ideas and will work to find the right external funding agencies in various project stages.
Target activities of MedTech West include:
- Creating a dynamic, internationally attractive, and competitive medical research platform for needs-driven and multi-disciplinary research that includes intensive interaction with the relevant industry.
- Developing a more open and creative environment based on a respectful team environment with a social and knowledge-oriented leadership.
- Launching a platform that will serve to
- Attract additional funding from VINNOVA, SSF, VR and / or the EU's 7th Framework Program, aiming for >20 million a year in a decade.
- Include additional clinics and research projects in the platform.
- Work around the two newly established biomedical engineering masters and graduate courses at Chalmers and University of Borås, together with various local and/or international medical-technology companies.
In this way, the presence of the platform and activities with which MedTech West is involved will continue to expand for years to come.
