The project partners have brought together their competencies into a new e-learning course, based on a student-centred approach and mixing both theory and practical exercises, to train a new generation of medical and technical staff able to boost the innovation in the medical plants sector. Also, partners felt the need of answering to an unsolved social issue related to the requirements of people with special needs (physical or mental diseases) that are prevented from accessing cures due to their disabilities. This aspect was included as transversal priority in the development of the project training contents and was addressed in a specific module included in the full curriculum. The project successfully transferred such knowledge and skills to both students and to HE lecturers/academics. The general objective of the project was to support the introduction of ergonomic and bioengineering innovations in implantology and prosthetics by adopting new digital applications and training in their use. The ErgoDesign e-learning course aimed also at filling this knowledge gap delivering a student- centred course mixing both theory and practical exercises for practicing digital skills and boosting students’ employability.
During the Covid pandemic the entire world experienced how important health care is and what happens when other values replace the priority of safeguarding human lives. It became clear that Health Care must be inclusive, thus allowing everyone to be able to access medical cures, both in times of emergency or in the phase of prevention. However, the reality is that few countries provide adequate quality services for people with disabilities. The ErgoDesign project aimed at creating a new interdisciplinary Curriculum to cover different topics (from ergonomics to bioengineering), taking into consideration the requirements of people with special needs, to create a more inclusive care system. The project succeeded to increase the inclusion and diversity, improving the competencies of designer and producer 3D implants for medical purposes. The project contributed to create a more inclusive environment that is responsive to the needs of the wider community, including people with special needs. The analysis on the actual needs of the MedTech and BioTech sector for new employees demonstrated that the most important hard skills refer to design experience and experience with relevant software.