Towards a European Health Research and Innovation Cloud (HRIC)

Frank Aarestrup, Abdullah Albeyatti, Willian Armitage, C Auffray, Luca Augello, Rudi Balling, Nora Benhabiles, Guido Bertolini, Jan Bjaalie, Michaela Black, Niklas Blomberg, Petronille Bogaert, Marian Bubak, Brecht Claerhout, Laura Clarke, Bertrand De Meulder, Gianni D'Errico, Alberto Di Meglio, Nikolaus Forgo, Caroline Gans-CombeAlexander Gray, Ivo Gut, Alexandra Gyllenberg, Georg Hemmrich-Stanisak, Lars Hjorth, Yannis Ioannidis, Sonata Jarmalaite, Alexander Kel, Ferath Kherif, Jan Korbel, Catherine Larue, Mitzi László, Andrew Maas, Luis Magalhaes, Isabelle Manneh-Vangramberen, Edwin Morley-Fletcher, Christian Ohmann, Per Oksvold, Neil Oxtoby, Isabelle Perseil, Vasileios Pezoulas, Olaf Riess, Heleen Riper, Josep Roca, Philip Rosenstiel, Philippe Sabatier, Ferran Sanz, Mohammed Tayeb, Gard Thomassen, Johan Van Bussel, Marc Van Den Bulcke, Herman Van Oyen

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

29 Citations (Scopus)
127 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The European Union (EU) initiative on the Digital Transformation of Health and Care (Digicare) aims to provide the conditions necessary for building a secure, flexible, and decentralized digital health infrastructure. Creating a European Health Research and Innovation Cloud (HRIC) within this environment should enable data sharing and analysis for health research across the EU, in compliance with data protection legislation while preserving the full trust of the participants. Such a HRIC should learn from and build on existing data infrastructures, integrate best practices, and focus on the concrete needs of the community in terms of technologies, governance, management, regulation, and ethics requirements. Here, we describe the vision and expected benefits of digital data sharing in health research activities and present a roadmap that fosters the opportunities while answering the challenges of implementing a HRIC. For this, we put forward five specific recommendations and action points to ensure that a European HRIC: i) is built on established standards and guidelines, providing cloud technologies through an open and decentralized infrastructure; ii) is developed and certified to the highest standards of interoperability and data security that can be trusted by all stakeholders; iii) is supported by a robust ethical and legal framework that is compliant with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR); iv) establishes a proper environment for the training of new generations of data and medical scientists; and v) stimulates research and innovation in transnational collaborations through public and private initiatives and partnerships funded by the EU through Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe.

Original languageEnglish
Article number18
Pages (from-to)1-14
Number of pages14
JournalGenome Medicine
Volume12
Early online date19 Feb 2020
DOIs
Publication statusPublished online - 19 Feb 2020

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Author(s).

Keywords

  • Opinion

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Towards a European Health Research and Innovation Cloud (HRIC)'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this