Call for tender for project: Aid for Health Research and Development Projects Department of Health of the Basque Government. Call for projects 2023

Funding body: Department of Health of the Basque Government

Record no.: 2023444001

Project Coordination: TECNALIA Foundation

PI: Dolores Verdoy

Project budget: €123,843.41.

Funding awarded: €42.229.

Description: This project is based on the need to analyse the current context, challenges and needs in the medium and long term, in Big Data & Bioinformatics for Health Research in the Basque Country. The proposal was key to the specific development of the first two lines of work proposed in the thematic area of Digital Health and Big Data of RIS3-Personalised Health, related to the collection and storage of healthcare data for R&D&I.

Objective: To move towards a public administration with secure data and information governance, protecting personal data and generating social and economic value. To this end, the aim is to identify initiatives underway in the Basque Country, Spain and Europe that can provide synergies in BigData and Bioinformatics applications in Health, as well as to analyse potential synergies and propose a technical scope and non-functional infrastructure requirements.

Expected results:

• Analysis of the current context.
• Identification of medium and long term challenges and needs in the field of Big Data and Bioinformatics for Health research, focusing on the data perspective.
• Analysis of the legal framework associated with data governance in this same context. Identified use cases are incorporated to answer the relevant aspects in this area.
• Identification of the main initiatives underway in the Basque Country, Spain and Europe with the potential to provide synergies in the applications of BigData and Bioinformatics in Health, as well as the generation of a proposal of technical scope and non-functional infrastructure requirements for the secondary use of data.
• Analysis of the different aspects related to data, such as its origin, life cycle, quality and interoperability, paying special attention to techniques aimed at guaranteeing data privacy for health research.
• Creation of recommendations to respond to the medium and long-term challenges and needs for Health Research in the Basque Country.

Participating agents:

• Tecnalia, coordinator of the project, contributes, among others, specialisation in the field of high-performance architectures, artificial intelligence and data-based health research.
• Vicomtech contributes, among others, specialisation in the field of artificial intelligence and data-based health research.
• Biosistemak provides, among others, specialisation in data-based health research and relevant experiences in data valorisation.
• Grupo de Investigación en Ciencias Sociales y Jurídicas aplicadas a las Nuevas Tecnociencias (GI-CISJANT) of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) provides, among others, expertise in the legal framework regulating the use of data.
• The Bioaraba, Biobizkaia and Biogipuzkoa Health Research Institutes as key agents in the development of the project by identifying the current state and needs for research with data.
• BIOEF, as the corporate head of health research in the Basque Country and with experience in health data management, will collaborate in the work described in the proposal.

Outstanding activities:

• Coordination of the activities of Work Package 1 for drawing up the needs map.
• Support to the activities of Work Package 1 on Legal Analysis of Data Governance.
• Preparation of Deliverable E1.1 – ‘Map of needs in Big Data and Bioinformatics for Health Research in the Basque Country’.
• Revision of Deliverable E1.2 – ‘Legal analysis of Data Governance in relation to the use of Big Data and Bioinformatics in Health Research’.
• Collaboration in deliverables E4.1 – ‘Recommended resource/s / Functional Scope’ and E4.2 – ‘Recommended resource/s / Requirements and Deployment Aspects’.