Researchers across Europe will benefit from Swiss expertise in secure sharing and analysis of health data, with SIB and ETH Zurich joining the EOSC-ENTRUST project of the European Open Science Cloud. Funded by Horizon Europe, the 16-country consortium is creating the blueprint for a continent-wide network of interoperable Trusted Research Environments (TREs), and validating this through real-world use cases in health, social science and public-private partnerships. The two Swiss institutions bring their experience in establishing a national TRE network, BioMedIT, in the context of the Swiss Personalized Health Network (SPHN).
SPHN and BioMedIT: pioneering infrastructure for sensitive data
Launched in 2017, the Swiss Personalized Health Network makes high-quality patient data discoverable and safely available for research in Switzerland. Secure exchange and processing of these data is enabled through BioMedIT, a national network of TREs hosted at institutions across the country. To date, over 800,000 patients have provided consented data to SPHN from 12 hospitals and health institutions, and BioMedIT supports over 1,000 users and 120 projects.
SPHN is coordinated by the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences (SAMS) and SIB. BioMedIT was developed by SIB, ETH Zurich, the University of Basel and the University of Lausanne, and includes the Leonhard Med TRE node developed by ETH Zurich Scientific IT Services.
Supporting large-scale research through a European TRE network
Trusted Research Environments turn medical, socio-economic and other sensitive data into new discoveries and innovations, by allowing researchers to securely share and analyse these data while protecting privacy and data sovereignty. Linked into an interoperable network, TREs could support even more powerful analyses. Today, however, environments built by research communities, institutions and countries across Europe remain siloed — running on different and often incompatible technologies and governance frameworks.
SPHN and BioMedIT: pioneering infrastructure for sensitive data
Launched in 2017, the Swiss Personalized Health Network makes high-quality patient data discoverable and safely available for research in Switzerland. Secure exchange and processing of these data is enabled through BioMedIT, a national network of TREs hosted at institutions across the country. To date, over 800,000 patients have provided consented data to SPHN from 12 hospitals and health institutions, and BioMedIT supports over 1,000 users and 120 projects.
SPHN is coordinated by the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences (SAMS) and SIB. BioMedIT was developed by SIB, ETH Zurich, the University of Basel and the University of Lausanne, and includes the Leonhard Med TRE node developed by ETH Zurich Scientific IT Services.
The EOSC-ENTRUST project is overcoming this fragmentation, by defining a common architecture, interoperability framework and security model that will allow TREs in different countries to connect in safe, standard ways. The blueprint will be implemented and tested through four diverse use cases for sensitive data analysis. The end goal is a network of nationally governed, interoperable TREs that is embedded in the European Open Science Cloud as well as European Data Spaces.
SIB, along with ETH Zurich, is contributing technical, operational and legal expertise to the blueprint, drawing on experience in establishing the Swiss Personalized Health Network (SPHN) and the BioMedIT TRE network (see box). The work contributes to SIB's mission to provide researchers and clinicians with outstanding resources and to represent Swiss bioinformatics internationally.
We're proud to bring extensive experience in making high-quality health data discoverable, interoperable and securely reusable to Europe's blueprint for connected Trusted Research Environments.
Developing real-world solutions for sharing and analysing sensitive data
The EOSC-ENTRUST project includes four use cases: federated analysis of genomics data, common standards for administrative and social science data, reuse of clinical trial data for research, and public-private collaborations. SIB will help develop and implement these use cases, which test the blueprint on real sensitive data shared across borders. This will ensure the blueprint meets the needs of researchers, data providers, and policymakers.
Contributing to Europe-wide knowledge on Trusted Research Environments
The project includes a forum, to which SIB will contribute, to share experiences and foster best practices. In addition to informing the blueprint and the integration of the TRE network into EOSC, the forum community will sustain knowledge sharing and collaboration among European TREs once the project has ended.
