The Centre enables us to:

• Grow a robust, sustainable, and energetic research environment to enable us to develop and deliver high quality research projects by applying for competitive national and international grants.
• Develop more cross-sector and institutional working, across professional boundaries, enabling us to develop the next generation of rehabilitation researchers.
• Deliver sustainable rehabilitation with a focus on digital technologies to:
  
  • Bring together a critical mass of rehabilitation researchers, increasing the visibility of rehabilitation research in Norway to attract further international collaboration.
  • Showcase our research to the public demonstrating the value of our research for public good.

Rehabilitation challenges

Despite several decades of research, there are still some key rehabilitation challenges that have not been solved. Our Centre will bring together people from different professions to re-think these challenges and develop innovative cost-effective and resource-efficient solutions, that includes new and emerging technologies, AI and machine learning approaches, and data-driven services.

• Improving access to rehabilitation and equity of care: Given the vast geography of Norway, some people in remote areas do not receive rehabilitation. We also know that some demographic groups within cities do not also have access to such services (e.g., ethnic minorities and immigrants). Where rehabilitation is provided, there is regional variation in terms of eligibility for rehabilitation and the type and amount of care people receive.
• Personalisation of rehabilitation: Successful rehabilitation relies on treatment personalisation, but this does not always happen because of healthcare resources (including personnel shortages and financial/time pressures).
• Long-term maintenance of rehabilitation gains: Many people are not able to maintain their rehabilitation gains after they stop receiving input from healthcare professionals. We need more knowledge about the utility of booster sessions and length of treatment. Continued practice is important to sustain gains made, prevent secondary events/problems, potentially reducing future healthcare use (and costs) – which we can evaluate.