SciLifeLab to coordinate integration of EU-DIGITAL funded health projects in Sweden

SciLifeLab/KTH has been granted 1.5 MSEK in funding from Sweden’s innovation agency (VINNOVA) to gather expertise and find synergies between four European DIGITAL projects and to ensure effective Swedish participation in the projects. The long-term goal is to ensure efficient and sustainable use of health data in Sweden.

The four European DIGITAL projects: Genomic Data Infrastructure; European Cancer Imaging; Health Data Sweden; and TEF Health all contribute to leverage Sweden’s strategic digital capacity to store and use health data.

“The aim is to contribute to sustainable structures through which health data can be handled, stored and utilized for the benefit of patients through improved healthcare and an excellent research and innovation landscape in Sweden”, says Sandra Falck, Vice Head of Operations, SciLifeLab.

The project term for this feasibility study is eight months, started in January 2023. The goal is to gather expertise and find synergies between the four European DIGITAL projects for effective participation from the Swedish side, as well as to engage other stakeholders towards long-term structures for health data.

“All four projects handle sensitive health data and share common components such as ethical, legal, and social issues, semantic interoperability, and technical infrastructure. The aim is to support the projects in these matters, as well as coordinate expertise and solutions between the projects and other stakeholders to build long-term solutions for health data management”, says Natalia Kotova, External Relations Officer at SciLifeLab who leads the project together with Rikard Lövström from The Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics (LIME) at Karolinska Insitutet. Three experts; on Ethical Legal and Societal Issues (ELSI), semantic interoperability, and technical infrastructure, are also part of the project team, as well as the principal investigator or coordinator in Sweden for the respective EU funded project.

More about the four European DIGITAL projects

The Genomic Data Infrastructure (GDI): A EHDS Genomics project aiming to enable access to genomic and related phenotypic and clinical data across Europe. It is doing this by establishing a federated, sustainable and secure infrastructure to access the data. Read more >>

European Cancer Imaging (EUCAIM): An EHDS Cancer Imaging project with the aim of EUCAIM is to establish a European infrastructure for medical cancer imaging. Read more >>

Health Data Sweden: One of Europe’s Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIH). Health Data Sweden is a national initiative with of 18 partners such as universities, regions, innovation environments and research institutes. Read more >>

TEF Health: Researchers at Karolinska Institutet, the Centre for Imaging Research,  SciLifeLab, and RISE have together received a funding from the European Commission’s Digital Europe programme to promote the rapid introduction of new artificial intelligence and robotics solutions in healthcare. Read more >>