In Germany alone, there are around 7.8 million people with severe disabilities, and a further 2.7 million with a mild, officially recognised disability who are dependent on external support. These figures are likely to rise further in the coming years due to demographic change. In addition, the shortage of skilled staff in the care sector is growing, and family carers are reaching the limits of what they can cope with. For years now, policymakers have been striving to find solutions to these challenges and have been funding research programmes that focus, amongst other things, on new technologies.
One such initiative is the ‘Rhine-Ruhr Centre for Assistive Technologies (ZAT)’ project: with a kick-off meeting on 11 January 2024, the joint project involving Rhein-Waal University of Applied Sciences (HSRW), Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences (HSNR), Bonn-Rhein-Sieg (HBRS) and the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE). The participating universities are building on years of experience in this field of research – as has the HSRW for more than ten years with projects such as MOBIL-mobil im Leben¹, RubyDemenz, ADAMAAS and AVIKOM². In this current joint project, which spans a three-year funding period, this experience is now being pooled and, together with the centre, used to strengthen and advance participatory research, development and the transfer of digital cognitive assistance systems into practice. Digital cognitive assistance systems are technical systems that support people in their everyday lives with tasks requiring cognitive abilities. These systems exhibit intelligent behaviour and may be based on artificial intelligence. In doing so, they take into account the context and the individual needs of the users. One example is robotic dolls designed to care for people with dementia. The project is led on behalf of the entire consortium by Dr Christian Ressel, Professor of Ambient Intelligent Systems, and Dr Nele Wild-Wall, Professor of Psychological Methodology, Neuropsychology and Gerontopsychology, both based at the HSRW’s Kamp-Lintfort campus. They see the aim of the project as making research efforts in this field more efficient and also creating a visible community for both the research community and the general public: “In the field of AI, for example, the joint project is intended to advance context recognition and the planning of actions by technical systems to achieve situation-appropriate goals,” said Ressel. In addition to the substantive work, structures are also to be put in place to establish a ‘genuine’ centre as a platform for conducting research efficiently, creating opportunities for knowledge transfer, supporting early-career researchers and bringing together stakeholders such as researchers and professional bodies. The ZAT is intended to become a place where research is initiated and carried out.
“The ZAT centre will be represented at the participating educational institutions through the research priorities and fields of research carried out there, and will initially present itself to the public virtually and through the existing laboratories. For example, a participatory café is to be set up and a user-driven platform implemented to inform interested parties and those affected about current support options and the state of research. Those affected can also get in touch with the researchers, provide feedback and input (e.g. on key everyday challenges) and participate actively in the research,” explains Ressel.
Contact details:
Prof. Dr Christian Ressel
Professor of Ambient Intelligent Systems
Email: christian.ressel@hochschule-rhein-waal.de
Prof. Dr Nele Wild-Wall
Professor of Psychological Methodology, Neuropsychology and Gerontopsychology
Email: nele.wild-wall@hochschule-rhein-waal.de
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2 https://caspar.institute/projects/
