Design to Promote Social Innovation in Medtech

This chapter focuses on the practices and challenges associated with the assessment of innovative projects by stakeholders in medtech. It examines the contribution of design in helping to assess and develop a project by bringing the voice of users to each stage of development using an iterative approach. The chapter reviews the main academic work on entrepreneurial support and explores some examples from the medtech sector. Innovation in medtech must ultimately benefit the patient. The chapter outlines the support process in medtech and discusses the challenges faced by actors in project assessment. It presents the reactions and possible uses of the collaborative tool on the basis of the common framework. Three main challenges related to the assessment of innovative projects include assessing the “right” level of maturity, assessing objectively and subjectively, and two-level coordination challenge.