Study Report on Collaborative Networks in Active Ageing

Description
Study Report on Collaborative Networks in Active Ageing - A Road-map Contribution to Demographic Sustainability:- Collaboration is working with each other to do a task.[1] It is a recursive[2] process where two or more people or organizations work together to realize shared goals, (this is more than the intersection of common goals seen in co-operative ventures, but a deep, collective, determination to reach an identical objective

Study Report on Collaborative Networks in Active Ageing A Roadmap Contribution to Demographic Sustainability
Ageing societies face tough challenges namely in terms of their ageing workforce and finding new models to accommodate current demographic trends. The application of the collaborative networks paradigm, and a new generation of collaboration-support platforms and tools, is a promising approach to supporting active ageing, and facilitating better use of the talents and potential of retired or retiring senior professionals. As such, collaborative networks can contribute to demographic sustainability. In this context, the results of a roadmapping initiative addressing the implementation of a new vision for extending professional active life are introduced. To support the aimed vision, a strategic research plan for the development of a new digital ecosystem, covering the social, organisational, and technological perspectives, is proposed. A large number of stakeholders coming from different backgrounds contributed to the design and validation of this roadmap.

Keywords: collaborative networks; active ageing; roadmap

1. Introduction Fast population ageing in industrialised countries raises important sustainability issues for the society. The usual notion of sustainability focuses on keeping, in the long run, a balanced system of environmental, economic, and social interacting dimensions or sub- systems. One important element of sustainability under the social sub-system is the demographic dimension, which leads to the term 'demographic sustainability', usually understood as a constant population level related to an optimal growth rate of the population, corresponding to at least 2.1 fertility rate (Roca and Leita˜o 2005). Another perspective of demographic sustainability is given by the relationship between working age and old population. Current demographic trends lead to a growing unbalance under this dimension, which has large impacts on the economic subsystem. In fact, as the proportion of older people in the population increases, it influences consumer patterns, business systems and capital markets, and put a considerable pressure on the social security systems. Particularly, the ageing population increases the pressure on the state pension funds. Most pension schemes are designed so that pensioners' benefits are paid by those who are currently working. With relatively

fewer people working and greater numbers claiming pensions, the long-term sustainability of this 'intergenerational contract' is in danger. In some sectors, namely in traditional manufacturing areas, the large wave of retiring professionals is leading to situations of skills shortage. Achieving the optimal functioning of this system requires the contribution of many stake- holders which can be facilitated by a collaborative networks approach. With the increase in both the percentage of senior citizens and expectation of life, it is timely to reassess the understanding of ageing and retirement, and questioning elderly's work, happiness, leisure, commu- nity involvement, etc. and their inter-relationships with respect to old age. Many elderly citizens, following retirement, quickly become marginalised and consid- ered as a cost burden rather than a resource that is capable of 'value creation' in the society (WHO 2002, HSBC 2007). This feeling of exclusion and isolation creates a vacuum in the life of the elderly citizens which in turn affects their health and well being. On the positive side, there is a growing recognition that the elderly population should not be considered a burden on the society but instead an asset that needs to be properly considered. A critical challenge for the society in respect to the 'active ageing/ageing well'

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L.M. Camarinha-Matos and H. Afsarmanesh in 2008 (Camarinha-Matos and Afsarmanesh 2009b). ePAL aimed to explore innovative ways to best facilitate and support active ageing and ensure a balanced and inclusive post-retirement lifestyle. A major hypothesis followed in ePAL is that ICT and particularly collaborative networks can provide an adequate framework for the implementation of effec- tive support to active ageing. This article, which extends an earlier version (Camarinha-Matos and Afsarmanesh 2010), presents the main achievements of ePAL, namely in terms of its vision and corre- sponding strategic research agenda.

process (Camarinha-Matos and Afsarmanesh 2009a) is to identify new organisational structures, approaches and mechanisms so that elderly citizens do not feel excluded, and have the chance to use their knowledge and expertise in making valued contributions to the communities where they live. In particular, the senior professionals/knowledge workers possess a number of skills and accumulated experience that need to be better used in value creation activities. On the other hand, as the older population increases and the growth in the middle-aged popula- tion slows down, older adults are becoming an increasingly important labour source. They typically bring maturity, dependability and years of relevant experience to the workplace. Nowadays with more people remaining in good health at older ages and increasingly more jobs not involving physical strength, more old adults are able to continue working than ever before. Furthermore, active ageing, through a balanced combination of leisure, social interaction and contin- ued work involvement, is central to meeting citizen expectations and maintaining mental and physical health (Wilson et al. 2008). Retirement does not necessarily need to represent the end of the working period, but rather a career and lifestyle transition, where the retiree in principle has multiple options - such as continuing to work (though perhaps at a different pace), returning to school for additional training or education, changing career, venturing into entrepreneurship, becoming more involved in volunteer work or simply enjoying leisure and travel possibilities - thus a mix of working, learning, relaxing, and trying new things can be foreseen as a desirable scenario. ICT, and particularly high-speed pervasive broad- band connectivity and web-based technologies, offer new opportunities to create new ways of working, facilitate social interaction, and reduce limitations imposed by location and time, thus increasing personal control. Nevertheless the sensitivity of the area, the dependency on the introduction of new organisational models and creation of a new culture in society, the lessons learned with the limited success of existing associations of senior professionals, the risk of contin- uously developing technology that is not taken-up by target users, among others suggest the need for a careful analysis and a better planned approach towards what concerns new developments. In this context, roadmapping plays a fundamental role in the identi- fication of a strategic research agenda and prioritisa- tion of needed actions. In order to elaborate a strategic RTD plan in this direction, a 27-month European initiative - extending Professional Active Life (ePAL) project - was launched

2. Challenges of an ageing workforce Various studies have analysed the consequences of an ageing workforce (Barnes et al. 2009, Macleod et al. 2010, EIU 2011). According to the EIU (2011) survey, 31% of the contacted companies expect to have a 'significantly higher proportion' of older workers (65þ) within the next 5 years. On the other hand, around 8 out of 10 (79%) of executives polled are willing to work as long as they can, provided their work is flexible. Particularly in the manufacturing and distribution sectors, the ageing of workers is an emerging concern for business leaders. In various companies, older workers in skills shortage areas or with tacit knowledge are recognised as a valuable resource and employers are keen not to lose them, but this does not apply in sectors with a lower skills base and no shortage of suitable applicants (Barnes et al. 2009). Rapidly ageing workforces, with a large proportion approaching the retirement age represent a major challenge when there are not enough younger, skilled workers to replace them. This is particularly stressed by the retirement of baby boomer generation, while the following generations are not filling the skills gap fast enough. For a number of sectors, namely in manufacturing, soon- to-be retirees hold the deep knowledge of processes and technologies that are vital to the successful operation of the business. In the USA, in comparison to other sectors, the manufacturing sector's demographic profile is disproportionately composed of older workers. As manufacturing employers can expect a large-scale exodus of older workers in the forthcoming years, they may face especially strong tensions in matching workers to jobs (Sweet et al. 2011). Similar findings are observed in UK, where the workforce is older in manufacturing than in other sectors. The sector is experiencing high levels of skill problems, with double the national average proportions of skills gap, skills

Production Planning & Control shortage and hard to fill vacancies (McNair and Flynn 2006). Another study conducted in the framework of an European research project (Fornasiero et al. 2009) identified many SMEs in the traditional manufacturing sectors (e.g. apparel and footwear) heavily depending on highly skilled senior workers and that were not really aware of the need to implement some form of senior age management policy. This study also high- lighted the need to pursue a more productive connec- tion between generations as a way to strengthen the very fabric of our society as a whole. As a result, a number of issues need special attention (Patrickson and Ranzijn 2005, KowalskiTrakofler et al. 2005, Fornasiero et al. 2009) including: . Flexibility - flexible and part-time working makes staying in work more attractive to older people. Part-time work, varied start and finish times, and allowing midday leave to attend to appointments are essential. While many workplaces have increased flexibility, the average conditions are not flexible enough and flexi- bility is not available to all workers. . Tele-work - allowing professional services provided remotely by older workers with technical, specialist and research skills and experience, for example, librarians, accoun- tants, lawyers, engineers, architects, and other professional groups. In many cases, the loca- tion of the specialist service provider is irrel- evant, with services provided locally, nationally and internationally, utilising all of the technological resources available. . Managing health at work - older workers have more serious, but less frequent, work- place injuries and illnesses than younger ones (Silverstein 2008). On the other hand, older workers are frequently regarded has being more subject to health risks, leading to more potential work absences or failure to cope with critical deadlines. . Lifelong learning - although important for all ages, training is a particularly sensitive issue for senior people. In addition to the obvious need of training for new technologies, there is also the need to acquire new skills that facilitate reassignment of jobs. For instance, a senior professional might possess a large experience on a given field of expertise and yet needs training in order to be able to apply such experience in coaching/mentoring activities. . Knowledge transfer from experienced to less experienced employees - through team work

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in Mixed Age Groups it is possible to reduce the risk of skills shortage and discontinuities in competencies. . Ergonomics of the work place - as older people lose some physical and even cognitive capabilities, it is important to adapt the work places to compensate for those diminishing capabilities. Ergonomics, ICT and even robot- ics can play an important role here. On the other hand, such adaptation needs to be conceived in a way that it does not turn into a discriminating factor against older workers. . Age-related shaping of work and organisation - the typical organisation of jobs/work activities is not designed to take into account the various stages of life. A new organisation of work that can benefit of the capabilities of people at each age is needed. Although considering this general context, ePAL focused mostly on a particular group, the knowledge workers.

3. Organisational forms and baseline The establishment of well-managed collaborative networks, involving both senior professionals and other relevant stakeholders, and supported by advanced collaboration platforms and tools, is likely to bring an important contribution to facing the above challenges. Currently, in addition to the traditional initiatives focused only on socialisation and entertainment activ- ities for elderly, a number of other organisational forms and mechanisms, already existing or emerging, are focused on providing ways to help seniors remain professionally active after their retirement. In fact, as a response to the active ageing challenges, in recent years, we can observe the emergence of a growing number of associations of senior professionals. Although bringing some benefits to their members, namely in the scope of socialisation, the current model of most of these associations may lead to some form of 'organised ghettos' for seniors with little inter-generational interaction. In order to guarantee a more holistic integration, the different socio-economic stakeholders must develop a whole series of business and beha- vioural models of varied structure, composition and characteristics to allow a variety of alternatives for the integration of senior professionals. Nevertheless, associations of retired professionals represent an important organisational structure sup- porting active ageing. Therefore, ePAL conducted a survey on 29 of those associations in Europe and

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Table 1. Analysed associations of senior professionals. AGIRabcd - General Association of Retired Volunteers for Cooperation and Development (FR) APCS - Associac¸a˜o Portuguesa de Consultores Senior (PT) ASECAT - Asociacio´n de Expertos para la Cooperacio´n y Asesor?´a Empresarial (CO) ASEP - Austrian Senior Experts Pool (AT) BSC - Belgian Senior Consultants (BE) COGAMA - Confederacio´n Galega de Organizacions de Maiores (ES) CONFEMAC - Confederacio´n Estatal de Mayores Activos (ES) CONJUPES - Confederacio´n Nacional de Jubilados, retirados y pensionistas de Espan˜a (ES) ECTI - French Senior Volunteers International (FR) EGEE - Seniors Experts Be´ne´voles (FR) FRAE - Fundacio´n Red Andaluc?´a Emprende (ES) ISES - Italian Senior Expert Service (IT) JUBIQUE - Asociacio´n Independiente de prejubilados y jubilados del sector financiero (ES) KOS - Korpus Ochotniko´w Specjalisto´w (PL) NESTOR - NESTOR Partners Oy (FI) OTECI - Conseil de seniors experts be´ne´voles (FR) PUM - Netherlands Senior Experts (NL) REACH - REACH Skilled Volunteers (UK) REACH REACH Skilled Volunteers (UK) RSVP - Retired and Senior Volunteer Programme (UK) SECOT - Seniors Espan˜oles para la Cooperacio´n Te´cnica (ES) SEN@ER - Silver Economy Network of European Regions (ES) SENA - Flemish Senior Advisors for Management and Engineering (BE) SENIORES - Seniores Italia (IT) SES - Senior Experten Service (DE) SFPA - Slovene Federation of Pensioners'Associations (SI) SHARE - Associac¸a˜o para a Partilha do Conhecimento (PT) SWB - Seniors Without Borders (DK) UDP - Unio´n Democra´tica de Pensionistas y Jubilados de Espan˜a (ES) VISVITALIS (PL)

outside Europe (Table 1) in order to get a consolidated view of their practices. The main conclusion is that these organisational forms exist due to the fact that many retired people refuse to accept the retirement as the end of a professional life, claiming instead for remaining professionally active. The aim of these associations is essentially to provide assistance to organisations and people that cannot afford market prices for such services, or voluntary assistance to organisations located in developing countries. Offered services are basically business consultancy and men- toring. The majority of them work on a voluntary basis sustaining themselves through membership fees and/or private or public funding and sponsorship. In terms of ICT, the majority of these organisations only use basic tools; nevertheless, they are willing to adopt new and modern tools to help in their daily activities. In terms of operation mode, various models can be found. One example is illustrated in Figure 1. In this case, an entrepreneur typically needs consultancy services in order to get a company project off the ground but cannot afford these services at market rates. The senior professionals association acts as an intermediary and selects the senior that best fits the needs of the entrepreneur from among its members.

Senior Professional (SP)

Mentoring/ consultancy Entrepreneur Reinbursement of expenses

Selects 1 SP

Senior Professionals Association

Looks for external assistance

Figure 1. Existing simple intermediation model.

Typically, besides reimbursement of expenses, the senior professional does not receive remuneration from the entrepreneur although he/she might benefit from the association in other ways (e.g. prestige, experience with new methods, infrastructures, etc.). A more complex example is represented in Figure 2. In this case, it is assumed that a Governmental Institution has created a consultancy program for SMEs with financial support from a Regional

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ICT Company Provides ICT collaboration platform

Platform payment Asks for consultancy service SME Asks for Team of SP Payment

Support for consultancy service to micro -enterprises

Governmental Institution

Consultancy service

Regional Government

Selects Team SP Team Senior of Senior Professionals Association Professionals Reward

Figure 2. Existing complex multi-stakeholder model.

Government. However, different from the previous case, the consultancy services are delivered by a virtual team supported by an ICT platform, which is provided by some ICT company. The association is in charge of assigning the work to a team of its members and putting them in contact with the recipient SME, in order to provide their consultancy services. For this collaboration case, the association receives some mon- etary remuneration. In order to offer the SME a high quality service, the team of senior professionals includes experts in different areas (e.g. marketing, finance, management strategy, etc.), which jointly provide integrated mentoring and consultancy services. Senior professionals receive some reward (monetary or other). Currently, this case in which tasks are carried out by teams of senior professionals (TSPs) is quite rare. In most cases, only one senior is involved in each task, which seems to represent a major weakness of the traditional approaches. The existing associations are mostly composed of a 'professional elite', i.e. people with high education and who had high positions in the socio-economic system before retirement. In most cases, these people have reasonable pensions, although varying from region to region, and therefore can afford to do voluntary (unpaid) activities. However, the number of people involved in such networks is not very high and many contacted seniors claim that it would be reasonable to receive some compensation for their contribution to value creation. In some geographical regions

(e.g. East Europe), where pensions are quite low, voluntary activities have a reduced expression. The effective involvement of seniors in the socioeconomic system needs to consider other more adequate organisational structures and the involve- ment of other stakeholders, namely intermediary entities and the recipients of the services provided by seniors. The associations of senior professionals need to embed a collaborative networks perspective, evolving to Communities of Active Senior Professional (CASP). A CASP is a kind of professional virtual community, constituting a long-term association of senior professional individuals that are largely auton- omous, geographically distributed, and potentially heterogeneous in terms of their capabilities, offered capacities, culture, system of values, etc., but sharing their main compatible and/or common goals of increasing their active professional life in the society and/or market, through co-working with others in TSPs supported by computer networks. TSP is a dynamically configured collaborative network of individuals, which is established within the CASP in response to opportunities in the society and market that are in need of their wisdom and/or knowledge assets that they can offer, which as a consequence supports the retired professionals remaining profes- sionally active. Some of the other needed stakeholders are also organised in some form of association, e.g. associations of SMEs, enterprise incubators or science parks, networks of regional development agencies and

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Community of Active Senior Professionals

Intermediary entities

Mediation role
CASP Regional development agencies

Start-ups, micro enterprises, SMEs Small consultancy

ICT-supported platform

Enterprise incubators, etc

Figure 3. Tri-partite networks.

Table 2. Baseline summary. Societal baseline EU is at present, slow to recognise the rationale behind fully supporting the extension of active professional life. In the private sector, much of these limitations are the consequence of a lack of awareness of senior professionals as potential employees. Though, groups such as Age Concern have also highlighted the negative connotations and image which still exists concerning the older worker. Due to this negative image, employment agencies focus on younger employees even though they have less experience. There are also issues around quantifying the skills and experience which seniors offer when a career change in later life is needed. There is a chronic shortage of models which can effectively leverage the usage of the skills of seniors, to connect employers/customers and seniors, concerning the skills and experience they can effectively bring to the marketplace. Effective new brokers are needed to ensure adaptation of recruitment and employment practices for seniors of the EU. Many of the present advances in ICT are not aimed at Senior Professionals as a target user, perhaps because those who design the software by and large do not come from a senior generation, and do not have a proper understanding of the needs of seniors, which leads to a vicious circle whereby software and applications are designed for younger users who then become its chief consumers and market, influencing its future development. Even if this trend cannot be broken, ICT tools for collaboration with other seniors, and fully adaptable interfaces to help seniors adapt the ICT tools to their needs are required.

Organisational baseline

Technological baseline

associated private (small) consultancy companies. Therefore, ePAL proposes a tri-partite network model (Figure 3) for a new generation of these collaborative networks. Complementing the analysis of common practices in existing senior associations, our baseline analysis also covered other approaches such as free-lancing activities and continuation of links with the working place after retirement, as well as state of the art in relevant scientific areas and related research proj- ects. Table 2 summarises those findings.

4. A vision for a desirable future The application of visioning in defining and shaping the future direction of an organisation or a society is increasingly becoming popular in today's world. A vision defines a desired future, while strongly interconnected with the framework that underlies the organisations or societies (Afsarmanesh et al. 2009). It is a deeply held picture of where a person, a group of people, an organisation or a society wants to reach in the future. We create meaning in our lives by pursuing

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Table 3. Example scenarios for ePAL environment. Scenario category Associations of retired professionals: voluntary work Main focus

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Focusing on the need for communities of active senior professionals to enhance chances of the involvement of senior professionals in daily activities as volunteers within their own societies or in other regions. These scenarios address the establishment, management and operation of the elderly communities. They also characterise the nature of activities of the communities and roles of senior professionals in performing those activities. Focusing on the role of brokerage of opportunities that can be responded by senior professionals either individually or through communities of active senior professionals. These scenarios characterise the roles related to brokering of opportunities, namely direct brokerage, where senior professionals are involved in capturing an opportunity, or indirect brokerage, where a third party is involved in capturing an opportunity. Focusing on potential markets, mostly technology-enabled markets, which are typically feasible for senior professionals to deliver their services. These scenarios also address the categorisation of clients into those who can pay and those who cannot pay for the services provided by seniors. Focusing on different roles that need to be performed by different parties to realise the establishment and operation of communities of active senior professionals. As such, these scenarios first characterise different stakeholders of the ePAL and then define the roles of each category of actors. Focusing on existing practices regarding keeping communication with the former employers and how it enhances the professional activeness of senior professionals. Focusing on the need for establishing some form of payments for the involvement of senior professionals in market and society activities.

Associations of retired professionals: brokerage and launching

Service markets

Tri-partite collaboration forms

Keeping the link to former employer Second job

our future visions, and we refine our visions based on the meaning and trends we are discovering through our experience. A vision is the most inspiring future the society can imagine, and thus creates meaning and purpose which catapults the individuals' aim at high levels of achievement (Donald 2003). Namely, a vision for a society shall provide (1) compelling image of the future, (2) credible and attractive view of what is potentially feasible to achieve for the society, (3) unifying guides to what the society wishes to and can become and (4) inspirational focal point for the spirit of the society and its members. Because of this ambitious prospect, the society can never truly achieve its vision. It rather works towards that vision. Any initiative aiming to support the extension of professional active life of elder people in Europe isaffected by a number of external factors in the market and society, which have the potential to either positively and negatively influence it. Current practices indicate that the European society, while started to act on this subject, is still slow to recognise the rationale behind and the importance of fully supporting the extension of active professional life of seniors. The actions being taken are mostly done in an ad hoc manner and without a clear vision of the future of the

European society. This is because there is no common vision on what the Europeans need to achieve regard- ing the extension of professional active life of seniors. Similarly, the capacity of the societies and the service sector to fully support the involvement of seniors in economical activities is at present limited, given the huge number of these seniors in different countries which need to be mobilised. A fundamental prerequisite for developing a vision for the desired future for active ageing is to identify both the key drivers (i.e. the main driving forces in the market and society) and their related trends regarding the ePAL environment. Three complementary drivers, namely the technological, social and organisational perspectives and their sub-drivers, were identified and characterised through extensive survey of existing practices related to active ageing and ageing well (Afsarmanesh and Msanjila 2010) as a preliminary step towards the definition of ePAL's vision. Additionally, a number of scenarios (summary in Table 3) were considered in order to better characterise the needs and aimed future. Some examples of such scenarios are shown in Tables 4-6. A well-conceived vision consists of two major components, namely, the core ideology and the

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Table 4. Example scenario: assistance to developing regions. Mario is a senior electrical engineer that used to work for the national energy distributor as a public installations analyst and inspector. Although 65 years old, he is a healthy man and felt frustrated for being obliged to retire so soon and at the same time depressed because he was at home with nothing interesting to do; he was feeling that he needed to give his brain some activity. One day, when navigating on the Internet, Mario found a website that attracted his attention - the ActiveSeniors Community. This website supported a community of senior people that was created out of the necessity of people to remain active after retirement through sharing with others their experiences, skills and knowledge. The main objective of ActiveSeniors is providing professional assistance to people, companies or organisations located in developing countries through unpaid/volunteering senior expertise. Mario felt enthusiastic with the ActiveSeniors Community, especially with the idea of travelling to a new country and of putting his brain in motion again, and registered immediately as a new member. After the registration process, Mario received a welcome letter and a collection of information containing the community rules. A couple of months later, Mario was still waiting to be contacted for an assignment and he started to feel anxious with the situation and remembered to start looking for missions. After a couple of days searching, he found a small electrical company in Cabinda, Angola, that was passing severe financial problems. Mario contacted both ActiveSeniors and the small Angolan company and after all the arrangements were properly made, Mario went to Cabinda. When Mario returned from Angola he was so happy that his relatives realised the importance of keeping retired people active . . .. In fact, contributing to help a region in need and also having the opportunity to travel was a great reward, especially considering that Mario's pension is enough for his needs. But the lack of opportunities to contribute is something that still worries him . . . By the way, thinking about the difficulties, he also felt a bit uncomfortable for having to perform his mission alone and having to do some field work in Cabinda to better understand the problem before he actually could contribute to solve it . . . As a result, his contribution was a bit limited as the resources for the mission ended . . . .

Table 5. Example scenario: working from home. Jonathon is a recently retired, successful Sales Manager. He was given a generous retirement package from his full-time job by his employer but he is worried that his private pension plan will not be enough to provide for a comfortable retirement. Having worked for 25 years for the same company in a full-time position, Jonathon does not know how to market himself and find work as a freelancer. His retirement package and pension mean that he does not need a full-time job to cover his living expenses but he does need some work to top up his retirement income. He is also keen to avoid taking up the travel burden which his former position involved and would like to be able to work from home in order to devote more time to pursuing his passion for golf and other hobbies. Unfortunately, he is concerned about the lack of work opportunities available to someone of his age regardless of his many years of valuable experience. Through searching the Internet he came across Guru.com. The Guru.com model - and others like it - demonstrates the way in which the internet is creating a virtual marketplace for services where the physical identity of the person carrying out the work is less important than the market price and the results. Bearing in mind some of the inherent prejudices that exist within the physical workplace towards elderly workers, the virtual workplace offers the opportunity for elderly workers to compete for work on a level playing field. Through registering his profile and experience on Guru.com, Jonathon has been contacted by a number of employees seeking his skills. The fact that he already has a retirement income means that Jonathon is able to offer a competitive fee for his services and the online nature of virtual working means he is able to attract a wider pool of potential clients, who benefit from his advice as a consultant. His paid advice has meant that a number of companies have been able to turn around their negative sales results and he is free to devote more time to his hobbies, being free from travel commitments. He has also been looking to involve his friend John in the same type of activity. However, John is a little older and is less of a regular Internet user. He's worried that the whole experience might be difficult for him to connect with. Also, John worked as an engineer and there are not that many opportunities for engineers on the Guru portal. If only there was something geared more to John'sneeds . . ..

envisioned future (Cummings 2005). Core ideology is the first primary component of the vision framework which consists of two parts: core values and core purpose. Core values are the essential and enduring tenets of an organisation or society. Core values have intrinsic value and importance to those inside the organisation or society. Core purpose however points to certain

fundamental reason for society to exist. Envisioned future is the second primary component of the vision framework which consists of two parts: a long-term audacious goal and a vivid description or desired facets of what it will be like when goals are achieved. Table 7 shows the general vision statement estab- lished for ePAL according to the above structure.

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Table 6. Example scenario: tri-partite collaboration form.

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Jose´ is apprehensive today. In fact, he has been worried lately. Everything was different 2 years ago when he and his friend had this idea for an innovative low-consumption air conditioning device and started their FreshAir company. The two engineers soon developed the new equipment, thanks to their dedication and enthusiasm. But now they are facing difficulties. They do not know much about marketing or internationalisation, although they understand the need to target a global market. Unfortunately, they spent all their resources in the start-up phase and now cannot afford to get assistance from one of those big consultancy companies . . . Either something happens or they may have to close and fire their employees soon . . . . 3 weeks later . . . . Jose´ and his colleague are having a meeting with Carlos and Ana, two members of the local branch of the Regional Development Agency (RDA). After some initial contacts, Carlos and Ana spent some time in the company making an analysis of its problems and today they are presenting their conclusions. The diagnosis seems logical to Jose´. It is clear that FreshAir needs some coaching and specialised guidance in two crucial areas - focused marketing and internationalisation. But they cannot afford the high costs of such specialised assistance. RDA, an organisation funded by the local government and that aims to promote local businesses, made the analysis for free. Unfortunately, they do not have the expertise to help in the nextphase . . .. Guessing the worries passing through Jose´'s mind, Ana told them that there is a potential solution. Then she mentioned the ActiveSeniors association . . . . Pedro is a retired professional, member of ActiveSeniors. Based on his specific expertise and experience in marketing, he was invited to join a team involving two other members of ActiveSeniors with competencies in internationalisation and air conditioning. Together with Carlos and Ana from RDA, this team started a temporary collaborative network with people from FreshAir. After 3 months, the first results are starting to show up. The ActiveSeniors team not only provided technical assistance and guidance, but also helped FreshAir establish some contacts with a new market in India. Now, the business prospects for the young company seem brighter . . . . Pedro is quite satisfied for having this opportunity to work on a topic where his experience was a real added value. He very much appreciated the diagnosis and preparatory work done by RDA, which allowed him and his senior colleagues to focus on the core issues. Working in a team was a great experience. The small payment Pedro received is also great to complement his pension and give him some better living conditions. FreshAir and RDA could mobilise some resources to pay a small fee to the three members of ActiveSeniors, a value much lower than the typical consultancy prices that could never be afforded by FreshAir. Carlos and Ana got a special recognition from their boss at RDA for being successful in helping a local company and thuscreating better economic prospects for the region. Jose´ and his friend regained their enthusiasm and they really appreciated the value of this collaboration endeavour with RDA and ActiveSeniors. They certainly plan to keep contact and look forward to again use the amazing pool of expertise and experience available at ActiveSeniors.

Table 7. General vision statement of ePAL. Core ideology: Building strong and cohesive societies across Europe that embrace active senior professionals to create value for individuals, communities and the economy. Envisioned future: In the coming decade, a comprehensive paradigm will emerge in response to the challenges of demographic shift in Europe that enables a balanced active life for senior professionals, regardless of gender, capitalising on their talents and expertise, and facilitating value creation for the benefit of the individual, the economy and European society as a whole. Main desired facets: V1. Well-founded reference model of the environment, specifying its endogenous (structural, componential, functional and behavioural) and exogenous (market, support, societal, constituency) elements, and their interlinks. V2. Well-established technological infrastructure, support tools/services. V3. Policies promoting changes in societal perceptions of age and support mechanisms to motivate and empower seniors, taking account of cultural differences, giving them the choice to continue their professional active life. V4. Established organisational infrastructures that support the interaction between senior professionals and other actors in the socio-economic system, facilitating value creation. V5. Established policies, legal frameworks and ethical principles - regionally, nationally and across Europe - that motivate and support senior professionals and other socio-economic actors and regulate their interactions.

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L.M. Camarinha-Matos and H. Afsarmanesh infrastructure for the involvement of senior profes- sionals in markets and (3) intermediaries (e.g. non- profit organisations, etc.) to support the brokerage of opportunities for senior professionals. In this research, to comprehensively cover the most important aspects related to a desired vision for ePAL, three main perspectives that are required to be addressed were identified. Namely, the vision of a desired future for active ageing shall cover its societal perspective, its organisational perspective and its technological perspective. Tables 8-10 show the instantiation of the vision according to these perspectives.

This statement provides a direction where the European society shall strive to follow, in order to achieve a balanced life for senior professionals who either need or desire to remain active in the society. It addresses providing opportunities and support for senior professionals who are willing to get involved in socio-economic activities. On the other hand, it suggests the main areas needing attention from other stakeholders in order to reach this desired state, such as (1) research institutions to provide innovative and new ideas in areas which require more R&D, (2) regulatory bodies (e.g. governments, law chambers, judiciaries) to provide a regulatory and legal
Table 8. Vision - social perspective.

In the coming decade, extending active professional life will be a high priority strategy across Europe. European societies will mature to accommodate demographic shift through supporting and empowering senior professionals to fulfil their potential as active participants in the economy. Attitudes amongst individuals and organisations will evolve to embrace senior professionals as a value-creating pool of talent, thereby supporting and promoting equal opportunities in active ageing. Both senior and young professionals will derive greater benefit from the exchange of knowledge and experience. As the social environment evolves, new support mechanisms will arise to sustain an ageing but more active and inclusive population. Main desired facets: VS1. New mechanisms to enhance positive understanding and perception in society regarding the value of the abilities, skills and experience of individual senior professionals in the economy, taking account of gender. VS2. Mechanisms to build awareness, and to motivate senior professionals to join communities of active senior professionals. VS3. Mechanisms to support cross-cultural interactions among senior professionals as well as to the active labour force addressing barriers to communication. VS4. Mechanisms to support a balanced economic benefits sharing among the entire society including senior professionals. VS5. New mechanisms to help articulate the collective needs of seniors across national boundaries. VS6. Mechanisms to support cross-generational interaction between seniors and younger citizens; fomenting inter-generational solidarity and understanding within the EU. VS7. Mechanisms to capitalise on the increased sense of trust and understanding which comes through leveraging seniors' social capital.

Table 9. Vision - organisational perspective. In the coming decade, the primary organisational stakeholders - governments, intermediaries, businesses and unions - will adopt positive, proactive and coordinated policies and approaches that enable seniors to choose to continue their professional active life. As a consequence, senior professionals will enjoy new opportunities and a new market space of senior skills will be created, benefiting businesses and strengthening the wider European economy. Main desired facets:. VO1. Employment and retirement policies will change to provide greater flexibility for seniors to choose to continue as active economic participants. VO2. Regulations and policies will change to encourage businesses to collaborate with senior professionals, taking account of fair competition. VO3. The knowledge and skills of seniors will be harnessed to generate value and stimulate innovation amongst European businesses. VO4. New forms of intermediate organisations will provide highly efficient brokerage that will create opportunities in line with market needs and that help seniors engage with businesses nationally and across Europe. VO5. There will be sustainable funding models - from both public and private sectors - and the political drive to support new forms of senior associations and other intermediate brokers. VO6. All stakeholders will have access to the relevant training and other support services to facilitate the seniors' transition between working life and active retirement. VO7. New organisational cultures will positively embrace relationships between senior professionals and pre-retired (active) professionals.

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Table 10. Vision - technological perspective.

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In the coming decade, technology will facilitate and enable the continued active involvement of senior professionals in the socio- economic system. Through engagement with end-users, novel ICT collaboration platforms and tools will be developed that catalyse the creation of new organisational forms that connect and empower all stakeholders and facilitate the interaction between them. This technology will be accessible to all, 'senior friendly' and will enable seniors to expand their capabilities, leave a legacy and create value. Main desired facets:. VT1. Advanced collaboration support services, including (virtual) teams' formation and management. VT2. Development of collaboration ontology supporting variety of stakeholders. VT3. Support for user-generated knowledge assets. VT4. 'Configure yourself' based philosophy infrastructure. VT5. Easily adaptable and customisable user interfaces. VT6. Affective computing and context aware enriched environments. VT7. Support for establishment of trust among stakeholders. VT8. Tools supporting the process of value creation. VT9. Novel contractual and cooperation agreements, including negotiation support. VT10. Advanced marketing and brokerage services. VT11. New networking models for elderly communities' involvement with the socio-economic system. VT12. Security and ethical/privacy support.

Table 11. Strengths and limiting elements for the technological perspective. Strengths - European context:. , St1 Good progress in conceptual models for collaborative networks (although mostly focused on industry cases). , St2 There is already an understanding of the needed management functionalities for VO breeding environments and professional virtual communities. , St3 Various partial models and advanced prototypes (e.g. negotiation, trust promotion, value systems) have been developed to support collaborative environments. , St4 ICT infrastructures exist across Europe to provide the basic communication building blocks that will be needed to implement the ePAL vision. Limiting elements - European context: , Li1 Lack of consolidated theoretical base in areas such as reference modelling for active ageing support systems. , Li2 Lack of effective and integrated ICT support for collaboration (till large fragmentation of functionalities). , Li3 ICT research in this area too much focused on the 'last phases of life', reducing the needed attention to active ageing support. , Li4 Fast proliferation of new tools and functionalities without a holistic approach, an obstacle for adoption by seniors. , Li5 Increasing trend to focus on techno-centric approach for ICT R&D, which hinders proper understanding of the critical issues of the socio-technical systems needed to support active ageing.

5. Strategic actions plan The elaboration of a plan of strategic actions is a fundamental step in roadmapping. Such actions, when successfully implemented, shall take the society from its current situation to a desirable future, as stated in the proposed vision (Camarinha-Matos et al. 2010). The process of formulating such actions starts with an intense brainstorming activity within a small group of experts. The gap analysis, i.e. the identification of the 'distance' between the current situation and the desired future, is an important element in this process (Leonard et al. 2009). Table 11 illustrates a high-level summary of the results of the gap analysis regarding the technological perspective.

The identified gaps can be expressed through the generation of an 'influence map' to represent both the positive and negative influences of the baseline's strengths/limitations on the achievement of the vision (example in Figure 4). A qualitative scale (e.g. as High and Moderate) is adopted to express the influences. In the formulation of a plan of actions, some basic principles were given as follows: . Consider the needs according to the social, organisational and technological perspectives of analysis and thus identify suitable actions for each of these areas. .Keep the number of actions in each focus area relatively small (up to 6) in order to facilitate focused discussion.

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V1 + V2 + + + + --

L.M. Camarinha-Matos and H. Afsarmanesh
V3 V4 V5 + V6 + + + V7 + + V8 + V9 + + V10 V11 + + V12

St1 St2 St3 St4 ... Li1 Li2 Li3 Li4 Li5

+

+

+

+ -+ Moderate Moderate ----

-

-

-

-

-

-

Positive influence + High Negative influence High

Figure 4. Gap analysis - influence map.

Table 12. Proposed actions under the social perspective. S1: Value identification and communication. Promote socio-economic studies that identify the unique value senior workers bring to the workplace (experience, compensation flexibility, etc.) as well as their motivation and value systems, investigate new ways of senior workers interacting with the socio-economic system and communicate findings to seniors, employers, unions and to the society as a whole. S2: Leveraging skills and talents. Design/develop mechanisms for skills/talent identification, categorisation and improvement that assess acquired experience, provide career transition advice and support skills enhancement to maximise the potential of seniors. S3: European senior space facilitation. Promote dialogue and consensus around issues of technology, culture and socio-economic participation, creating links between existing and emerging senior associations and groups to develop a single, powerful voice for senior professionals across Europe. S4: Facilitating inter-generational interaction. Investigate the barriers and potentials for cross-generational interaction and collaboration between senior professionals and younger people, and fund/promote programmes and technology development that support and facilitate this interaction/collaboration. S5: Improving working practices. Investigate new models of working practices and related reward and taxation models for senior professionals, taking account of issues of work-life balance, ageing well and gender, and promote the findings in order to positively influence societal perception of older workers. S6: Developing training and awareness. Design/develop ICT and collaboration training programs for seniors, and promote awareness and usage of collaboration technologies.

. Ensure that the proposed actions cover all stated facets of the vision. . Propose actions that although ambitious, are feasible considering the current situation (baseline) and trends, and that take into account the results of the gap analysis. Tables 12-14 introduce the proposed set of strategic R&D actions (Camarinha-Matos et al. 2010) that resulted from the roadmapping process conducted within the ePAL consortium and the extensive discus- sions held with stakeholders during several regional Consensus Building Events. The actions shown below

reflect already the extensive feedback received in those events. Considering the need to address technological developments within a socio-organisational context, similarly to the vision statement, the proposed actions are grouped into three major areas: social perspective actions, organisational perspective actions and finally technological perspective actions. As previously mentioned, an important assumption in this roadmapping initiative is that the collaborative networks paradigm provides a useful basis for more effective active ageing support and thus contributing to

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Table 13. Proposed actions under the organisational perspective.

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O1: Enhancing policy and legislation. Identify and assess current national and European policy, legislation and incentives relevant to active participation of seniors in the socio-economic system and recommend new approaches that lower barriers and promote and support active ageing. O2: Keeping links. Investigate new mechanisms that forge mutually beneficial relationships between seniors and their former employers. O3: Creating organisational structures. Investigate and promote new roles, governance rules and organisational forms for communities of active senior professionals to enhance inter- and intra-community collaboration and to create new opportunities for member engagement. O4: Improving mediation and brokerage. Characterise and design new roles and modes of operation for intermediate organisations, both public and private, that provide brokerage and assistance to better facilitate integration and collaboration between senior professionals and the socio-economic system. O5: Guiding career transition. Define new programmes and realistic practices that prepare for and guide the successful transition of senior professionals from full employment to active retirement, taking account of issues of gender, profession and local context. O6: Meeting and creating market demand. Explore the best fit between capabilities of senior professionals and market demand and identify new channels to harness these resources and potentials in order to generate value and stimulate innovation amongst European businesses, thus supporting the economy.

demographic sustainability. Therefore, the develop- ment of reference models, collaboration platforms and collaboration support tools specifically oriented towards the facilitation of the continuation of the involvement of senior professionals in the socio- economic system is a major goal. Certainly, considerable progress has been made in recent years in the area of collaborative networks, accompanied by rapid developments in computer networks and web-based technologies. Thus, the pro- posed actions for the technological perspective take account of these trends, and focus on the specificity of active ageing and particularly on support to the extension of active professional life. As the main focus of ePAL is on a roadmap for ICT development, the actions under the technological perspective (Table 14) are more detailed than the actions under the other perspectives. In recent years, a considerable amount of tools have been developed in what concerns webtechnologies, social networks and collaborative networks (Camarinha-Matos et al. 2008). Nevertheless new specialised platforms and support tools are needed specifically focused on the needs of seniors and considering the suggested tri-partite model. Examples are given as follows: . Developing conceptual models. There is a lack of comprehensive understanding and a suit- able formal conceptual model to represent and support people's professional life cycle and thus it is essential to establish a reference model for the regulation of active ageing and extension of professionals' active life, along

with the elaboration of a common ontology for the senior professional communities. Other components are the development of contrac- tual models and business models for the communities of senior professionals. As such, the following research and development needs to be further addressed: (i) development of conceptual models to support the design and implementation of collaboration support services, including services supporting (vir- tual) teams' formation and management as well as 'user friendly interfaces' for senior professionals; (ii) discovery and management of collaboration ontology that supports a variety of stakeholders in communities of active senior professionals as well as in the configured TSPs; (iii) design of templates for novel cooperation contracts and agreements, as well as models and support environments for the implementation of negotiation pro- cesses among actors; (iv) development of models to guide the implementation of advanced marketing and brokerage services; and (v) design of new networking models for elderly communities' involvement with the socio-economic system. . Generating adaptive solutions. As some seniors may require special training and assistance when dealing with new technology, it is neces- sary to have self-customisable collaboration environments that empower them to better use the ICT solutions. Here, several solutions may be developed, such as self-adaptive interface

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Table 14. Proposed actions under the technological perspective. T1: Developing conceptual models. Establish formal conceptual models for people's professional life cycle and the support environment for active ageing. , T1.1: Establish a reference model for extension of professional active life and active ageing. , T1.2: Elaborate common ontologies for communities of senior professionals. , T1.3: Develop contractual and business models for communities of senior professionals. T2: Generating adaptive solutions. Develop and integrate self-adaptive and configurable technology solutions in ICT collaboration environments facilitating technology acceptance and enabling customisation for/by seniors. , T2.1: Develop self-adaptive interface systems. , T2.2: Develop self-customisable collaboration environments empowering seniors to better use ICT. , T2.3: Develop technology assistance wizards. , T2.4: Increase involvement of seniors in the design of new technologies for seniors. T3: Building collaboration platforms. Develop open ICT collaboration platforms for communities of senior professionals that promote human interaction and socialisation and are enhanced by affective computing, context awareness and trust establishment. , T3.1: Develop advanced functionalities and systems for management of communities of senior professionals. , T3.2: Develop affections/emotions management systems for communities of senior professionals. , T3.3: Design and support governance systems for communities of senior professionals. , T3.4: Develop trust building management systems for communities of senior professionals. T4: Building collaboration tools. Design and develop collaboration support tools and systems to facilitate value creation, considering the specific needs of senior professionals. , T4.1: Develop marketing and brokerage support tools for communities of senior professionals. , T4.2: Develop tools for virtual team creation, negotiation and e-contracting. , T4.3: Develop tools for virtual team management and collaborative problem-solving support. , T4.4: Develop models and tools for management of intellectual property and performance. T5: Leveraging legacy. Develop environments that empower seniors to leave a legacy capitalising on their valuable and transferable personal/professional experience. , T5.1: Define conceptual models of talents and develop user-centred knowledge acquisition tools. , T5.2: Create reward mechanisms (system of incentives) to attract user-generated knowledge. , T5.3: Develop knowledge assets assessment and intellectual property models. , T5.4: Mechanisms to promote inter-generational inheritance. T6: Elaborating behavioural models. Develop approaches that discover patterns and model 'the evolution of senior professionals' interests and their involvement in the 'socio-economic system' and 'the behaviour and emotional health of senior professional networks'. , T6.1: Develop a conceptual base for behavioural modelling. , T6.2: Develop data-mining/machine-learning approaches for behavioural patterns discovery. , T6.3: Develop forecasts and simulation methods and tools for behavioural analysis. , T6.4: Develop models and tools for emotional health management.

systems and technology assistance wizards. Therefore, in relation to this topic, further research is needed to address the development of 'Configure yourself'-based infrastructure, and easily adaptable and customisable user interfaces. Systems built in this way should therefore include functionality for evaluating their behaviour and performance, as well as the ability to re-plan and reconfigure their own operations in order to improve operation. Self- adaptive technology solution should also include a set of components for each major function, along with descriptions of these components, so that components can be selected and scheduled at runtime. It also requires the ability to match changing input/ output of sequenced components, and the

ability to generate some of this code from the specifications. . Building collaboration platforms. The ICT collaboration platform shall support synchro- nous and asynchronous communication within a network through a variety of devices and channels. Through a set of software components and services it shall enable actors to find each other and the information they need, and to be able to communicate, interoperate and work together to achieve common business goals. The core elements of the ICT collaboration platform include mes- saging (email, calendar scheduling, contacts, etc.), team collaboration (activity coordina- tion, file synchronisation, ideas and notes in a wiki, task management, full-text search, etc.),

Production Planning & Control real-time collaboration and communication (presence, instant messaging, web conferenc- ing, application/desktop sharing, voice, audio and video conferencing), and Social Computing tools (blog, wiki, tagging, RSS, shared bookmarks). Besides governance sys- tems of the community, the platform should also provide community management (Donald 2003), and a trust building system supported by an affective/emotions-based management system. Furthermore, to realise a proper ICT collaboration platform for senior professionals, further research needs to be performed addressing the following: (i) development of advanced collaboration support services, including (virtual) teams' formation and management; (ii) development of affective computing and context aware enriched environments; (iii) formulation of mechanisms and development of systems sup- porting the establishment of trust among stakeholders; and (iv) provision of security and ethical/privacy support. . Building collaboration tools. Collaborative processes in networks, namely through coworking among partners, need to be sup- ported by ICT collaborative tools and services in order to effectively achieve the creation of aimed values. Furthermore, services are needed to support networks publicise their brand and participate in brokerage of oppor- tunities. To enable community members to co-perform their professional activities, ICT services and tools shall facilitate the following aspects that are in need of further research: (i) advanced collaboration support services for formation of virtual teams; (ii) advanced services for negotiation and econtracting in virtual teams; (iii) support for virtual team management and collaborative problem solv- ing; (iv); management of intellectual property and performance; (v) tools supporting the process of value creation; (vi) advanced marketing and brokerage services; and (vii) secu- rity and ethical/privacy support services. . Leveraging legacy. Senior professionals' involvement in societal and market activities is not only to provide more economic gains but also to transfer the accumulated knowl- edge and experience to younger generations and other professionals. For the later process to be achieved, considering that the current working environments are mostly ICT- enabled, an environment must be built to

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support empowering seniors, making them feel useful and needed by the society, as well as easing the process of transferring their knowl- edge to the intended recipients. As such, innovative mechanisms and tools need to be developed to facilitate the modelling and capturing of talents and skills of senior pro- fessionals. Namely, services to support acquir- ing, storing and managing knowledge assets from senior professionals. Therefore, for these aspects to be realised in communities of active senior professionals, further research is needed to address the following topics: (i) develop- ment of tools supporting inheritance and sharing of usergenerated knowledge assets; (ii) design of new networking models provid- ing incentives for involvement of elderly com- munities in the socioeconomic system; and (iii) furthermore, training and methodological support for using available technologies for content creation need to be developed. . Elaborating behavioural models. In the ePAL context, there are a variety of participating stakeholders; each with its own emotions and interacting behaviours, so the implementation of mechanisms to understand the collective emotional state of CASPs, to perceive how emotions influence the performance of both CASPs and their senior participants as well as monitor the emotional equilibrium of the interested parties are needed. Emotions con- stitute a central element for human beings, especially in human interactions. In this way, the study of their functioning is a prerequisite for the understanding of individual and col- lective behaviours. In the context of collabo- rative networks, individual participants, as part of a community, experience emotions not only as a result of directly experiencing events (that evoke their own particular emotions) but also through collaborative interactions and by identifying themselves with the collaborative network as a whole. If the CN emotional system fails, the CN will not succeed even if it is excellent from the organisational and social competencies point of view. Thus, the introduction of a proper 'supervision system' to manage the emotional climate of collaborative networks with the intention of maintaining the emotional equilibrium of the community, forecasting and attempting to heal potential conflicts among participants and external communities are important elements for the success of the network.

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L.M. Camarinha-Matos and H. Afsarmanesh concept, aimed at addressing longer term challenges. . Trials - oriented towards the development of pilots and validation scenarios that allow verification and refinement of the results of previous phase with the objective of

Figures 5-7 show the proposed time sequence for the implementation of the actions. In these time sequence diagrams, three modalities of implementation are considered: . R&D focusing on fundamental research andprototype development/proof of

2011
S1: Value identification and communication S2: Leveraging sk ills and talents S3: European Senior Space facilitation S4: Facilitating inter-generational interaction S5: Improving working practices S6: Developing training and awareness
R& D R& D

2014

2017

2021

R& D R& D

Trials Trials Trials R& D Trials Trials

Broad deployment and continuous improvement Broad deployment and improvement Broad deployment and continuous improvement Deployment/ improvement Broad deployment and continuous improvement Broad deployment and continuous improvement

R& D

Trials

Figure 5. Time sequence for actions under the social perspective.

2011
O1: Enhancing policy and legislation O2: Keeping links O3: Creating organizational structures O4: Improving mediation and brokerage O5: Guiding career transition O6: Meeting and creating market demand
R& D

2014

2017

2021

R&D R& D R& D R& D Trials Trials

Trials

Broad deployment and improvement Broad deployment and improvement Broad deployment and continuous improvement Trials Deployment/ improvement

Trials

Broad deployment and continuous improvement Trials Deployment/ improvement

R& D

Figure 6. Time sequence for actions under the organisational perspective.

2011
T1: Developing conceptual models T2: Generating adaptive solutions T3: Building collaboration platforms T4: Building collaboration tools T5: Leveraging legacy T6: Elaborating behavioural models
R& D R& D R& D

2014

2017

2021

R& D R& D Trials

Trials Trials

Broad deployment and continuous improvement Broad deployment and improvement Broad deployment and continuous improvement

Trials Trials

Deployment/ improvement Broad deployment and continuous improvement Trials Deployment/ improvement

R& D

Figure 7. Time sequence for actions under the technological perspective.

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Vision facets covers Support for user-generated knowledgeassets. Action

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VT3 T5

Leveraging legacy

New networking models for elderly communities' involvement with the socio-economicsystem.

VT11

Figure 8. Covering the vision facets - organisational perspective.

Table 15. Feasibility assessment. Social perspective S1 Moderate Hard Hard Moderate Very hard Moderate O1 O2 O3 O4 O5 O6 Organisational perspective Hard Moderate Moderate Very hard Hard Very hard T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T6 Technological perspective Very hard S2 Very hard S3 Moderate Hard S5 Very Very

S4 hard S6 hard

facilitating the development of innovative products and services. . Broad deployment and continuous improvement - aiming at large-scale validation - large pilots - of new technologies and services, as a mechanism to facilitate their take-up by society.

12 10 8 6 4 2 0 Little Very

6. Roadmap validation The proposed vision statements and strategic action plan resulted from a multi-stage construction and validation process. An initial formulation was pre- pared by the ePAL consortium following a series of consultation workshops and brainstorming sessions. Once a set of strategic actions emerged as a result of the brainstorming exercise, it was then necessary to proceed with a verification of those actions. The adopted verification process, at this stage of the roadmapping process, comprised two main activities: (i) verify that the set of proposed actions adequately cover all stated facets of the vision and (ii) assess the feasibility of each action considering the results of the gap analysis. Figure 8 illustrates the first step of validating the roadmap results for the action T5 under the technological perspective. Regarding the second step of validation, related to feasibility, the adopted approach was to consider how

Figure 9. Example of agreement with ePAL vision.

the strengths and limitations at European level iden- tified in the gap analysis facilitate or make difficult the implementation of each action. Table 15 shows the result of this assessment. This verification needed to be conducted by experts and depends on the perception of each individual according to his/her background knowledge. Therefore, a qualitative scale (scale: Moderate, Hard, Very Hard) was adopted. The last phase of the project was focused on the refinement and consensus building among relevant stakeholders. For this purpose, a number of Consensus Building Events were organised in different regions of Europe, namely Porto, Seville, London, Madrid, Maastricht, Lisbon and Thessaloniki, involving more than 170 experts from different fields. Figure 9 illustrates the level of agreement with ePAL vision as voted by participants in one of

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S5: S6: S4: S2: S1: S3: 0% 5% 10% 15% 20%

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O5: O6: O1: O2: O3: O4: 25% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% T2: T5: T3: T4: T6: T1:

Figure 10. Prioritisation of actions.

these events. Figure 10 shows the level of prioritisation of actions as a result of voting by the consulted stakeholders. This prioritisation, combined with the expected difficulty identified in the feasibility assessment, can provide decision makers with important elements when deciding on research resources allocation.

7. Conclusion Increase in aged population is a critical issue in sustainability. As the expectancy of a longer and healthy life increases, the issue of extending the active professional life of senior people becomes an important topic. Such extension, if properly balanced with leisure and social activities, is likely to (i) facilitate active ageing, keeping seniors involved in, and contributing to, society; (ii) generate additional income to help them maintain their standard of living and to support the wider economy, thus responding to the demographic sustainability challenges. In this process, avoiding isolation and loneliness or even the creation of 'elderly ghettos' is a major concern. ICT can be an important enabler in facilitat- ing the creation of collaborative networks involving not only communities of seniors, but also potential recipients of their services and intermediary entities in a multi-level network. The collaborative networks paradigm supported by relevant technologies can also facilitate inter-generational interactions and thus contribute to the avoidance of ghettos. The systematic roadmapping process behind the proposed research agenda as well as the extensive validation process involving a large community of stakeholders are important factors for providing confidence in the adequacy of the proposed roadmap. Nevertheless, as normal in any 'futures planning' initiative and taking into account the impossibility of adequately foreseeing the future, a roadmap is a dynamic construct that needs to be periodically revised

alongside its implementation, taking into account new trends as they inevitably emerge. As such, the results of ePAL are now being integrated and further developed in a new roadmapping initiative of the European Commission, the BRAID project. BRAID considers four life settings when addressing ICT and ageing, namely (i) independent living, (ii) health and care in life, (iii) occupation in life and (iv) recreation in life. ePAL results are the main input to the 'Occupation in life' setting. These roadmapping results are also an input for the design of a large Portuguese initiative on ICT and ageing, the AAL4ALL project.

Acknowledgements
This study was funded in part by the European Commission through the ePAL and BRAID projects. The authors thank the contribution of their partners in these projects as well as the multiple stakeholders involved in the consensus building workshops.

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for Virtual Enterprises) and is the founder and president of the international Society of Collaborative Networks (SOCOLNET) as well as the founder of the IFIP Working Group on Virtual Enterprises. In 2009, he was awarded the Doctor Honoris Causa by the Polytechnic University of Bucharest.

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Camarinha-Matos, L.M. and Afsarmanesh, H., 2009b. The need for a strategic R&D roadmap for active ageing. In: Leveraging knowledge for innovation in collaborative networks, Springer, 669-680. Camarinha-Matos, L.M., Afsarmanesh, H., and Ollus, M. (eds.), 2008. Methods and tools for collaborative networked organizations. New York: Springer. Camarinha-Matos, L.M. and Afsarmanesh, H., 2010. Active ageing roadmap - a collaborative networks contribution to demographic sustainability. In: Collaborative networks for a sustainable world, IFIP AICT Series 336/2010. Berlin, Heidelberg, New York: Springer, 46-59. Camarinha-Matos, L.M., et al., 2010. ePAL Roadmap for active ageing - a collaborative networks approach to extending professional life. In: Proceedings of AGEmap Workshop/Pervasive Health 2010 conference, 22 March, Cummings, T.G., 2005. Organization development and change. Mason, OH: Thomson South-Western. Donald, E.H., 2003. Building leadership vision. Eleven strategic challenges for higher education. EDUCAUSE Review Magazine, 38 (4), 25-34. EIU, 2011. A silver opportunity? Rising longevity and its implications for business. Economist Intelligence Unit Report. Fornasiero, R., et al., 2009. Methodologies for active ageing in the manufacturing sector. In: L.M. Camarinha-Matos, I. Paraskakis and H. Afsarmanesh, eds. Leveraging knowledge for innovation in collaborative networks, IFIP AICT 307. Berlin, Heidelberg, New York: Springer, 733-741. HSBC, 2007. The future of retirement - The new old age. HSBC Insurance Report. Available from: www.hsbc.com/ 1/PA_1_1_S5/content/assets/retirement/gender_perspective_eurasia_africa_1.pdf [Accessed may 2007]. Kowalski-Trakofler, K.M., Steiner, L.J., and Schwerha, D.J., 2005. Safety considerations for the aging workforce. Safety Science, 43 (10), 779-793. Leonard, W., et al., 2009. Exploring the gap for effective extension of professional active life in Europe. In: L.M. Camarinha-Matos, I. Paraskakis and H. Afsarmanesh, eds. Leveraging knowledge for innovation in collaborative networks. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 695. Macleod, A., et al., 2010. Managing an ageing workforce: How employers are adapting to an older labour market. Chartered Management Institute, UK. Available from: http://www.managers.org.uk/age2010 [Accessed 17 October 2010]. McNair, S. and Flynn, M., 2006. Managing an ageing workforce in the manufacturing sector - A report for employers. Produced for the Department for Work and Pensions by the Centre for Research into the Older Workforce. Available from: http://research.dwp.gov.uk/ asd/asd5/rports2005-2006/agepos7.pdf [Accessed 17 October 2010].

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