About

co-OPERATOR is an innovative Horizon EU4Health funded project that aims to develop a Country-Observatory to share best practices for vaccination promotion.

Indeed, European stakeholders face significant variability in addressing vaccination hesitancy and implementing COVID-19 vaccination campaigns among healthcare providers and the general population. Challenges include widespread hesitancy within the population and variations in the communication skills of healthcare providers. To address these issues, cross-country initiatives play a crucial role in knowledge-sharing, especially considering the observed differences in vaccine coverage during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The co-OPERATOR project seeks to capitalize on research findings by developing and piloting a knowledge hub, virtual observatory, and training system across participating countries and beyond. This proof-of-concept initiative aims to gather, structure, and disseminate knowledge, best practices, and resources related to stakeholders’ strategies for COVID-19 vaccination and beyond. The primary focus lies in advancing communication and knowledge skills while addressing systemic barriers and facilitators for effectively promoting vaccination messages to the population.

The project addresses three main target groups: the general population, health professionals and local stakeholders related to the project area, and pursues five objectives:

Objective 1: To build survey tools to measure the determinants of vaccine uptake (general population) and of skills for promoting vaccination programmes efficiently (healthcare professionals)

Objective 2: To develop a set of citizen-centred evidence- based, scientifically sound recommendations and advice on how to address low vaccination uptake and to help healthcare professionals communicating more efficiently about vaccines

Objective 3: To provide a comprehensive assessment of factors underlying low vaccination uptake and healthcare professionals’ barriers and facilitators to communicate vaccination information as well as their distribution among target population groups to inform a citizen-centered approach to promote vaccination uptake

Objective 4: To design and develop an intuitive and interactive virtual observatory (the co-OPERATOR platform) to foster dissemination, transferability, utilization of project results across the participating member states, the EU/EEA and beyond

Objective 5: To translate research evidence generated by other WPs into evidence-based recommendations (intervention toolset) by engaging with stakeholders through a Policy Lab to address barriers and knowledge gaps and co-create practical solutions for implementation at regional, national, and European level.

The role of Cittadinanzattiva-Active Citizenship Network

The participation in the European project Co-Operator of Cittadinanzattiva-Active Citizenship Network as a consortium partner is linked to its ongoing commitment to vaccination policies.

In fact, in view of its significant experience in policymaking at European level and its contributions to the promotion and protection of citizens' rights in the field of vaccination throughout Europe, Cittadinanzattiva-Active Citizenship Network will be particularly involved in WP6, which aims at translating research evidence into evidence-based recommendations, involving stakeholders through a Policy Lab to address barriers and knowledge gaps and co-create practical solutions for implementation at regional, national and European level, to move towards a common knowledge related to a life course vaccination approach: immunisation is key to preventing disease and protecting life.

Communication channels and materials:

• project website: cooperatorvax.eu
• LinkedIn: co-OPERATOR
• Instagram: @cooperatoreu

• Facebook: Co-Operator

Project duration:
The project has a planned duration of 36 months, starting from November 2023 and ending in October 2026.

Lead partner:

Cyprus University of Technology (CUT) – Cyprus

Consortium partners:

Centre for Social Innovation (CSI) - Cyprus

 DGS – Portugal

University of Pisa – Italy

Computer Solutions S.A. (CSSA) – Greece

CESIE – Italy

Cittadinanzattiva-Active Citizenship Network (ACN) - Italy

European Forum for Primary Care (EFPC) - The Netherlands

Maastricht University (UM), The Netherlands

Stichting Radboud Universitair Medisch Centrum (RUMC), The Netherlands

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them. Project Number: 101133251