Europe’s move toward a cross-border European Health Data Space (EHDS) and the strict privacy demands of the GDPR highlight a pressing gap: sensitive medical records, genomics files, images, and clinical notes remain siloed, hampering early diagnosis, personalised treatment, and evidence-based policymaking. At the same time, neurodegenerative disorders and gut-microbiome-related diseases impose rising social and economic costs across the EU. HEREDITARY (Horizon Europe RIA 101137074, 2024-2028) answers this challenge by delivering a trustworthy digital framework that links, analyses, and explains multimodal health data without moving it from its source.
The Overall Objectives of the project:
- Federated data linkage & privacy-preserving AI: Build a scalable platform that lets hospitals and biobanks query and co-train models on distributed data while keeping patient information on-site.
- Semantics-aware analytics: Combine clinical, genomic, imaging, signal, and text streams to reveal new risk factors and therapy targets for gut–brain disorders such as Parkinson’s, ALS, and mental health.
- User-centred decision tools: Provide visual analytics, open knowledge graphs, and multilingual terminology so clinicians, researchers, policymakers, and citizens can act on the insights with confidence.
Pathway to Impact
- Clinical and research gains: Multimodal datasets and FAIR knowledge-graphs will drive faster diagnosis, stratified trials, and precision medicine guidelines.
- Policy contribution: Federated architecture offers a blueprint for EHDS-compliant data sharing, supporting Europe’s Digital Decade and AI Act ambitions.
- Economic and societal value: Earlier detection and tailored interventions are expected to lower care costs and improve quality of life for millions affected by high-burden neuro- and metabolic diseases.
Role of Social Sciences and Humanities
SSH partners lead Health Social Laboratories for co-design with patients and clinicians, translate complex terminology into plain language, assess ethical-legal compliance (GDPR, AI Act), and train stakeholders in policy advocacy. Their work guarantees that the platform is socially robust, ethically sound, and broadly trusted—turning technical advances into real-world health and policy impact.
