SciLifeLab coordinates national collaboration between health data EU-DIGITAL-projects and GMS

The 4-year Vinnova funded collaboration project is entitled “For efficient and sustainable use of health data through the integration of the DIGITAL-projects and GMS in Sweden (DIGIfor1healthSE)”. It aims to maximize the effective use of the expertise that exists jointly within these European health data DIGITAL-projects in collaboration with the national initiative Genomic Medicine Sweden (GMS).

”This project is based on the recently conducted feasibility study coordinated by SciLifeLab and funded by the Swedish Innovation Agency Vinnova where working groups of experts and the Swedish leads for Digital Europe Projects within health data European Genomic Data Infrastructure (GDI), European Federation for Cancer Images (EUCAIM) , European Digital Innovation Hub Health Data Sweden (HDS) and Testing and Experimentation Facility for Health, AI and Robotics (TEF-Health) participated. Among others, the issues in terms of legal aspects, semantic interoperability, technical infrastructure, and data security for long-term solutions for health data management were highlighted (read more on https://doi.org/10.17044/scilifelab.24199164),” says Natalia Kotova, External Relations Officer at SciLifeLab.

DIGIfor1healthSE will further contribute to coordination nationwide for increased use of health data for excellent research, sustainable precision health,and strengthened Swedish competitiveness and attractiveness. DIGIfor1healthSE also supports national development towards introducing the European Health Data Space. SciLifeLab, as national infrastructure within Life Sciences and an active part in these initiatives, coordinates the project.

“We look forward to continuing the collaboration and see great value in joining forces on the national level to address common questions in a coordinated manner for accelerated development towards better usage of health data,” says Sandra Falck, Vice Head of Operations at SciLifeLab.

The value of such collaboration is also highlighted by the participating DIGITAL-projects and GMS:

“We are very happy for this Vinnova funding enabling coordination between these projects, which will improve the Swedish work in the European collaborations on health data infrastructures and which will contribute to facilitated health data access for Swedish research, health care and innovation,” says Bengt Persson, GDI-lead in Sweden, Uppsala University.

“This joint project enables synergies between the HDS capabilities for innovation and the strong research initiatives and infrastructures in the other projects. We look forward to bring in our laser focus on creating patient value from inventions, which will accelerate from the excellent research communities that are brought together,” says Sebastiaan Meijer, HDS-lead, KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

”GMS has during the past years obtained in-depth knowledge and experience especially regarding legal aspects and the establishment of a technical infrastructure to access healthcare data. We look forward to participating in this joint effort to accelerate Sweden´s ability for data sharing/use of data at both national and international level,” says Richard Rosenquist Brandell, Director Genomic Medicine Sweden.

“TEF-Health and EUCAIM have interactions also on the European project level and we see great benefits of this national joint initiative bringing central projects together towards the same goal of making data and infrastructure available for research, innovation and utilization towards trustworthy AI and improved patient care,” says Katrine Riklund, EUCAIM-lead in Sweden, Umeå University, and Daniel Lundqvist, TEF-Health lead in Sweden, Karolinska Institutet.