The Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL), the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO), the TicSalut Foundation, the L’Hospitalet City Council and the Catalan companies Factual and Bax Innovation are participating in the European DynamiCity project, coordinated by the Eurecat technology centre, which aims to promote active mobility, such as walking, cycling or micromobility, through digital tools, smart infrastructures and urban planning.
The actions will be developed in collaboration with a total of thirty-six partners of the European consortium, who met today in L’Hospitalet, with the aim of evaluating how active mobility and the urban environment can contribute to improving the physical and emotional health and quality of life of people with cancer.
To this end, the initiative, which is funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme, seeks to promote healthier lifestyles, contribute to cancer prevention and improve the quality of life and survival of people suffering from this disease, while promoting more sustainable and climate-neutral cities.
Active mobility to promote health and well-being
DynamiCity is based on the idea that urban mobility can play a key role in public health. Therefore, the project focuses not only on analyzing the influence of urban transport on health, but also on promoting concrete changes in how trips to the city are planned and used.
In this sense, the project will promote walking, cycling, and the use of micromobility as safer, more accessible, and more attractive options, supported by digital tools that will help public administrations analyze the needs of each city, engage citizens, and design more effective interventions.
To achieve this, DynamiCity will promote people-centred interventions to promote health literacy linked to active mobility and encourage different groups to incorporate walking and cycling into their daily habits, reinforcing both physical and mental health.
Within this framework, Eurecat, as project coordinator, leads the design of the interventions and the global management of DynamiCity, in addition to developing digital behaviour change tools to promote active mobility between citizens and cancer survivors in a personalised and gamified way.
The IDIBELL and ICO research team, led by Paula Jakszyn, from the Nutrition and Cancer Unit, will coordinate the interventions aimed at patients and citizens within the project. Marta Crous and Catalina Bonet (UNAC) also participate, as well as Dr. Cristian Ochoa, from the Psycho-Oncology Service.
For its part, the participation of the TicSalut Foundation will focus on ensuring the long-term institutional adoption of DynamiCity’s digital health solutions within the public health system of Catalonia and also promoting their replication.
The Catalan company Factual, which develops and deploys the tool that assesses the quality and safety of bike lanes, will lead the implementation of the interventions in the project’s living labs, while the consulting firm Bax Innovation will contribute its knowledge in supporting cities in the planning of active mobility infrastructures, the linking of different stakeholders and the development of modal shift strategies.
A European consortium to promote more sustainable cities
The consortium brings together twenty-seven lead partners and nine associate partners from seventeen countries, including twelve European cities, nine of which are part of the European Mission for Climate Neutral and Smart Cities and six integrated into the Net Zero Cities initiative.
The project sets ambitious targets, such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions by more than 15% and increasing walking and cycling by more than 30% in six demonstration cities and six follower cities.
Through concrete recommendations and measures in areas such as urban design, digital tools and public policies, DynamiCity aims to contribute to breaking down traditional barriers between the health and transport sectors and to promote new European strategies that place active mobility at the heart of urban planning and public health policies.
The impact of the actions will be measured based on indicators related to the increase in active mobility, the reduction of environmental exposure and health outcomes linked to cancer prevention and survival.
With this interdisciplinary approach, DynamiCity aspires to become a European benchmark in the integration of health, mobility and urban planning to address some of the main social, environmental and health challenges of the cities of the future.
About IDIBELL
The Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL) is a research centre created in 2004 and specialising in cancer, neuroscience, translational medicine and regenerative medicine. It has a team of more than 1,500 professionals who, from 73 research groups, publish more than 1,400 scientific articles a year. L’IDIBELL is participated by the Bellvitge University Hospital and the Viladecans Hospital of the Catalan Health Institute, the Catalan Institute of Oncology, the University of Barcelona and the City Council of L’Hospitalet de Llobregat.
IDIBELL is a member of the Campus d’Excelencia Internacional of the University of Barcelona HUBc and is part of the CERCA institution of the Generalitat de Catalunya. In 2009 it became one of the first five Spanish research centres accredited as a health research institute by the Carlos III Health Institute. In addition, it is part of the HR Excellence in Research program of the European Union and is a member of EATRIS and REGIC. Since 2018, IDIBELL has been an Accredited Centre of the AECC Scientific Foundation (FCAECC).