The Homes4Life “Community of Interest” (CoI) is a network of key stakeholders interested in following the developments of the project and as such, supposedly interested in topics at the crossroads of ageing, housing and the age-friendliness of the built environments. The successful delivery and take-up of the project productions will depend on the capacity of project partners to engage with a representative range of stakeholders to be involved for the adoption of an age-friendly approach to housing. This holds particularly true for the design and adoption of the Homes4Life Certification Scheme, main output of the project, that will be the subject of a dedicated exploitation scheme targeting specific categories of stakeholders.

In that context, the Community of Interest will play a crucial role, by allowing for the consortium both to communicate on the project results and to obtain stakeholders’ inputs. These stakeholders range from public authorities to construction and industrial experts, technologists, providers of personal household services and representatives of inhabitants and older adults – be they owners or tenants. After 12 months of project, the Community of Interest count 121 individual members from more than 20 different countries (as of Nov. 26th, 2019) – mainly in Europe. A large majority of those members wishes to be informed about the project progress and achievements. More than half of them is willing to contribute to the development of the Certification Scheme; a same share is interested to test it.

Members of the Community of Interest have the possibility to contribute to the project and bring external expertise. This has been the case for instance during the first stakeholder workshop organised in Brussels on 11 June 20191. The Community of Interest will be maintained after the end of the project for instance by the entity that will exploit the Certification Scheme. Such a Community will be critical after the end of the project to foster the uptake of the Certification Scheme and to be able to identify and contact future demo cases or early buyers.

The Community of Interest has been initiated by communicating about Homes4Life among all the partners networks. It keeps growing thanks to a snowball effect, as more and more stakeholders hear about the project, e.g. during conferences and events attended by the partners. During the remaining 12 months of the project, the consortium will keep exchanging with the Community of Interest about the work carried out, the deliverables published, the events we organise, etc. It is expected to reach 750 members by November 2020.