The award recognises projects that create a lasting impact extending beyond the projects themselves. EDEN-Medical, an Interreg Meuse-Rhine project in which DronePort is one of the official consortium partners, was selected by an independent jury based on four criteria: impact on citizens, cross-border collaboration, involvement of government, industry and academia, and the scalability of project results.
EDEN-Medical explores how cross-border drone logistics can strengthen healthcare resilience and improve the availability of critical medical supplies, particularly during emergencies and crisis situations. Together with partners from Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, the project examines medical use cases, technical requirements, and the regulatory and operational challenges that need to be addressed to enable reliable cross-border drone transport. By bringing together healthcare organisations, technology partners, researchers and public authorities, the project demonstrates how Euregional cooperation can help overcome national borders and improve healthcare resilience.
The Impact Maker Award recognises the collective efforts of the project partners and the wider significance of their work, highlighting not only the project’s potential to improve healthcare resilience in the Euregio Meuse-Rhine, but also its broader contribution to removing cross-border barriers and enabling similar innovations across Europe.
EDEN-Medical is co-funded by the European Union through the Interreg Meuse-Rhine (NL-BE-DE) programme, co-financed by the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany) and the Province of Limburg (the Netherlands). The project brings together nine partners from Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands: Uniklinik RWTH Aachen, Zuyderland, Docs in Clouds TeleCare GmbH, flyXdrive GmbH, the Institute for Transnational and Euregional Cross-border Cooperation and Mobility (ITEM/Maastricht University), RWTH Aachen University, Ziekenhuis Oost-Limburg (ZOL), DronePort and the Aachen Institute for Emergency Medicine and Civil Protection.
