Researchers at University of Limerick are to play a role in a European digital health research project that could revolutionise care for children and adolescents with visual impairment.
UL is a partner in the VIPPSTAR project, which has just been launched and is funded by the HORIZON-Europe Programme with a budget of €8.1 million over four years.
Visual impairment affects an estimated 3.82% of young people globally, impacting their physical, cognitive, and social development. Current care models often lack the continuous, personalized support these children need.
VIPPSTAR aims to bridge this gap by providing personalized prevention strategies, tools, approaches, and resources, leveraging advanced digital tools and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, used ethically and safely.
By integrating AI and digital health tools into care, VIPPSTAR aims to empower children and adolescents with visual impairment to lead fuller, healthier, and more independent lives.
A total of 19 partners from 11 countries are contributing expertise to the project, including UL, led by Associate Professor Cristiano Storni, who will be responsible for the development of innovative co-design methodologies for designing with children and adolescents with visual impairment.
“These will be used to co-design eLearning and digital health applications, including serious games for VI rehabilitation, multimodal AI avatars, wearable to support Physical activities, and validate proposed solutions with identified stakeholders and project partners,” explained Associate Professor Storni, Senior Researcher and SFI Funded Investigator who is Director of the Interaction Design Centre in UL’s Department of Computer Science and Information Systems.
The VIPPSTAR project will develop the first holistic framework aimed at enhancing the health, well-being, and autonomy of children and adolescents with Visual Impairment across different stages of life.
From newborns to young adults, the project proposes a system of interconnected interventions, personalized prevention strategies, tools, and resources leveraging advanced digital tools and artificial intelligence supporting health, psychological, educational, motor, cognitive, and social competences.
The project is coordinated by Brescia University in Italy for neurocognitive visual rehabilitation in infants, with technical support from the LIGHT Centre for AI technology and the ASST Spedali Civili Medical centre.
A total of 19 partners will contribute to the development of the VIPPSTAR Telemedicine platform: Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, led by Professor Els Ortibus, will provide expertise in vision rehabilitation and body image development; Erasmus MC in The Netherlands, with Johan Pel, will study eye tracking to quantify the rehabilitation progress; University of Tübingen in Germany led by Professor Marina Pavlova, will contribute knowledge on social cognition; University of Trento in Italy, with Professor Paola Venuti, will study e-learning for VI and physical activity enhancement; Spindox Labs and ComfTech in Italy will develop AI-powered avatar assistance and smart textile technologies, respectively led by Cristiano Carlevaro and Alessia Moltani; University of Ioannina in Greece, led by Professor Dimitris Fotiadis, will develop the AI nutrition coach; Istituto Superiore di Sanità in Italy and the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, guided by Maria Luisa Scattoni and Professor John Ravenscroft, respectively, will establish a cross-national surveillance network for collecting data on children and adolescents with VI across Europe; Eodyne Systems in Spain with Santiago Brandi, will develop the telemedicine and medical device regulatory aspects; the National Rehabilitation centre of Moldova, led by Ecaterina Ginkota, will validate the digital health technologies; sport associations Real Eyes Sport in Italy, led by Daniele Cassioli and Les Glenans in France will test applications for physical activity, while Views International in Belgium will provide dissemination to their stakeholder network.
