December 18, 2019

Under the project title "InstAgT - teilhabe digital", the Institute for Applied Research of the Catholic University of Applied Sciences Freiburg (project management Prof. Dr. Gregor Renner, Prof. Dr. Florian Kiuppis), the Institute Man, Technology, Participation of the Furtwangen University of Applied Sciences (Prof. Dr. Christophe Kunze) as well as the Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences - Technology and Economics (Prof. Dr. Matthias Wölfel) with the Caritas Bundesverband Behindertenhilfe und Psychiatrie e. V. (CBP), Caritasverband Freiburg-Stadt e. V., Lebens- und Arbeitsgemeinschaft Lautenbach e. V. and Sankt-Josefshaus Herten gGmbH to form a network to research the use of modern technologies that can increase the social participation opportunities of people with cognitive functional impairments. "InstAgT" is being funded with more than one million euros until the end of July 2023 through the "FH-Sozial - Förderung von Forschung an Fachhochschulen zur Verbesserung der Lebensqualität in Stadt und Land durch soziale Innovationen" program of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.

By developing suitable strategies and practical-organizational solutions, people with cognitive functional impairments as well as their relatives and caregivers are to be enabled to familiarize themselves with new technologies from consumer technology (e. e.g. navigation, voice assistance systems, tablets, networked objects) and to use their potentials to increase the social participation of those affected.

The university partners involved cover various disciplinary perspectives and research approaches to the application of new technologies in this field of use and also enable interdisciplinary specialist research in line with the complexity of the problem area. This includes investigations of application potentials as well as acceptance factors of the use of individual technical configurations in disability care, the development of structural and organizational framework conditions for their use in curative care processes in practice, the classification of corresponding change processes in the context of inclusion and participation as well as questions of technical feasibility and participatory technology design taking into account different expert groups with high and ordinary (affected persons, relatives, caregivers) technology competence.

"Our tasks in this field are to develop and implement new technologies in the field of disability care.

"Our tasks in this broad-based research project," says Prof. Dr. Matthias Wölfel from the Faculty of Computer Science and Information Systems at Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences, "are in particular the development of technical solutions and the conception, implementation and evaluation of measures that promote voluntary engagement of people with high technical competence as a supportive resource for institutions and those affected, and in further steps anchor it institutionally."