The Future of Care Work

The CAREFUTURE project seeks solutions to the care crisis by investigating both grassroots innovations as well as innovations driven by artificial intelligence, organizations and policy.

The study explores how local innovations developed by employees and citizens could be integrated in the wider care system and what kinds of solutions artificial intelligence and digital tools may provide in a socially and ethically sustainable way. In addition, the project looks for ways to support nursing students’ entry and retention in health and social care and investigates the links between nurse communities' well-being at work and innovation.

The project will organize a national innovation competition and innovation councils in which policy makers, care operators, citizens and nurses evaluate and develop new solutions. The results can be used to strengthen the appreciation of care work, improve the care system's capacity for innovation and support its sustainable renewal.

The project is led by the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health and will be carried out in consortium co-operation with the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, Tampere University of Applied Sciences and the University of Jyväskylä. The project is funded by the SKILLS program of the Strategic Research Council (SRC).