Consortium Partners
Coordinator: Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), Madrid, Spain
UPM leads the PROTECT-CHILD project, spearheading the development of the EHDS-compliant User Journey Assistant for secondary data use, enabling secure data discovery, permit management, and federated analysis. UPM drives the design of a privacy-preserving infrastructure that ensures seamless interoperability of multi-source clinical and genomic data. It manages critical tasks like data integration, metadata standardization, and advanced AI-powered analytics, fostering personalized medicine and enhancing clinical decision-making.
Servicio Madrileño de Salud (SERMAS), Madrid, Spain
As the public body for health care in the Madrid Autonomous Region, it forms an umbrella for different hospitals, primary and secondary care centres that assists millions of people 24/7. SERMAS also hosts several health research institutes. In PROTECT-CHILD, its participation is articulated through Hospital La Paz Institute for Health Research (IdiPAZ). La Paz University Hospital is the oldest “modern concept” tertiary care centre in Spain, and one of the biggest in our country, attending a population that exceeds 750.000 people. SERMAS will count with contributions from FIBHULP, a foundation created and controlled by SERMAS to manage the administrative tasks, handle the EU contribution in its bank account, put personnel to SERMAS’s disposal and purchase equipment, goods, and services for SERMAS. FIBHULP is the coordinator beneficiary of ERN TranplantChild.
MultiMed Engineering SRL (MME), Parma, Italy
MultiMed Engineers (MME) is a research oriented SME that studies the application of modern digital technologies in knowledge intensive sectors, with a special focus on the biomedical field. In the PROTECT-CHILD project MME is responsible for Quality Assurance, for Pilot deployment (ensuring alignment of technical development with clinical research needs), and for planning the exploitation of project results.
Ethniko Kentro Erevnas Kai Technologikis Anaptyxis (CERTH), Thessaloniki, Greece
The Centre for Research and Technology, Hellas (CERTH) is one of the most important Research Centers in Greece with a main mission to promote innovative research for the benefit of society. Dedicated to this purpose, CERTH lies at the forefront of basic, applied and technological research to provide solutions to society’s modern challenges. In PROTECT-CHILD, CERTH is leading the Data Governance and Ethical Framework implementation and will employ innovative technologies to facilitate the data access application and data permit management, as well as the ethics review processes. In addition, CERTH is responsible for the Massive Data Ingestion and Storage Infrastructure tools to manage, analyze, and derive insights from complex pediatric health data.
INETUM España S.A. (INTM), Madrid, Spain
Inetum is a European leader in digital services. Inetum’s team of 28,000 consultants and specialists strive every day to make a digital impact for businesses, public sector entities and society. Inetum’s solutions aim at contributing to its clients’ performance and innovation as well as the common good.
Inetum is one of the technical partners of the consortium and contribute specialized knowledge on IT systems development, cloud and computing resource provision, data harmonization & integration, and business consulting in the PROTECT-CHILD project. Inetum leads the WP3, Big Data infrastructure for massive data management and is also responsible for providing the PROTECT-CHILD platform support, NLP algorithms, and pilot assessment.
University of Twente (UTW), Enschede, The Netherlands
The University of Twente coordinates the co-creation process to develop an efficient and user-friendly ecosystem for PROTECT-CHILD’s primary users. By understanding the diverse requirements of stakeholders and applying various human factors methods, we engage key groups, including healthcare professionals, researchers, technical experts, and legal specialists, throughout the development process. These collaborative efforts ensure the platform meets user needs while ensuring security, compliance, and efficient data management.
Universidad de Granada (UGR), Granada, Spain
The University of Granada participates in the PROTECT-CHILD project trough a bioethics research group, leading WP11 on Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues (ELSI). Its responsabilities inlcude establishing and coordinating the Independent Ethical Advisory Board (IEAB), developing an open-ended ELSI framework, organizing ethical discussion seminars, and providing guidance on topics such as informed consent, secundary use of data, and the protection of vulnerable pediatric populations. These contributions ensure the project meets ethical standards and fosters responsible research practices.
BIOMERIS SRL, Pavia, Italy
BIOMERIS is an Italian SME and a spin-off from the Biomedical Engineering Laboratory at the University of Pavia, dedicated to providing innovative solutions for medical research for more than ten years.
BIOMERIS leads WP4 (PROTECT-CHILD Core EHDS Services) and WP5 (Data Discovery and Use Framework), delivering key functionalities for the project.
In WP4, BIOMERIS develops the PROTECT-CHILD capsules, integrating OLTP functionalities, ETL processes, and standards like FHIR and OMOP to support data discovery, permits, and usage phases.
In WP5, BIOMERIS creates data discovery services with metadata annotation systems and federated query engines, along with secure multi-party computation (MPC) services for privacy-preserving OLAP operations and distributed data analysis.
BELIT, Belgrade, Serbia
BELIT is an IT and e-commerce company. Role in the project involves: Development of the orchestrator and core orchestration services that enable orchestration of PROTECT-CHILD capsules, alongside integrating related orchestration services for data discovery, permissions, and usage; Streamlining and enhancing the process of collecting and managing patient consent, utilizing blockchain technology and smart contracts for secure and transparent handling; Integration and linking of genomic data through pilot-specific databases, focused on population data, pathogenicity prediction, pharmacogenetics, and disease-specific information.
Universidad de la Iglésia de Deusto Entidad religiosa (UDEUSTO), Bilbao, Spain
In PROTECT-CHILD, the University of Deusto develops interoperable data and metadata models spanning genomics, EHRs and lab reports ensuring quality, privacy, governance, and compliance with FAIR and TEHDAS principles. They implement metadata annotation/query services to enable privacy-preserving data discovery, integrate quality and utility labels, and deliver a user-friendly data catalogue and cohort builder. This empowers secure, anonymized dataset exploration, facilitating feasibility assessments before data permit applications.
Istituto Mediterraneo Per I Trapianti E Terapie Ad Alta Specializzazione SRL (ISMETT), Palermo, Italy
ISMETT is a key clinical partner in this project contribuiting in develpping infrastructure to collect and analyze big data on transplanted children. Our institute will test final platform that gathers a wide range of medical data from pediatric transplant recipients. By leveraging this data, the initiative seeks to improve the quality of care, monitor long-term outcomes, and enhance personalized treatment strategies for young transplant patients. ISMETT’s role focuses on contributing clinical expertise, facilitating patient recruitment, and ensuring the integration of relevant medical data into the infrastructure, ultimately advancing pediatric transplant care and research.
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Italy (UPMCI), Palermo, Italy
UPMC in collaboration with ISMETT is a key clinical partner in this project contributing in developing infrastructure to collect and analyze big data on transplanted children.
UKE Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany
The UKE is one of the leading centers for pediatric solid organ transplantation in Germany and Europe. We take part in PROTECT-CHILD as one of four clinical centers.
Università degli Studi di Padova (UNIPD), Padova, Italy
The University of Padova is a clinical partner in this project, contributing its expertise in transplantation to support key activities. Padova will assist in the design of the clinical study and play a role in developing and testing a comprehensive database and final platform for integrating and analyzing medical data from pediatric transplant recipients. In addition, the clinical team will enroll pediatric liver and kidney transplant recipients in a retrospective-prospective (ambispective) study and collect detailed clinical data. This collaboration demonstrates Padova’s commitment to advancing pediatric transplant care through data-driven approaches, with the goal of enhancing care quality, optimizing personalized treatments, and monitoring long-term outcomes for young patients.
HL7 International Fondation, Brussels, Belgium
In collaboration with HL7 Technical Coordination Team comprizing representatives of HL7 Affiliates in Europe, HL7 Europe supports the creation of health information technology standards under the HL7 EU Realm to encourage use of HL7 standards in European health systems and provide education services, promote tools and facilitate testing and certification. HL7 Clinical Document Architecture (CDA) is used by myHealth@EU to record patient summaries and ePrescriptions. HL7 is also the home of Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR). HL7 Europe is also active in the development of EHRxF specifications for the European Health Data Space developing and supporting work with HL7 FHIR Implementation Guides. In PROTECT-CHILD, HL7 Europe will be engaged in activities relevant to specifications, data models, and liaison with relevant initiatives also connected to the EHDS.
Georgia Tech Research Corporation (GTRC), Atlanta, United States
The Georgia Tech Research Corporation (GTRC) contributes to the PROTECT-CHILD project by leveraging its expertise in data management, harmonization, and interoperability. Specifically, GTRC applies advanced frameworks such as Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) and the SMART-on-FHIR protocols, as well as Observational Medical Outcomes Partnership (OMOP) Common Data Models. Their role benefits from prior collaborations with the Children’s Hospital of Atlanta, enhancing data integration and standardization within the project’s objectives.
Universita Degli Studi Di Roma La Sapienza (UNIROMA1), Rome, Italy
Sapienza’s role in PROTECT CHILD focuses on investigating Quantum Secure Multi-Party Computation (MPC) frameworks for genomic data management. The research aims to enable faster computation and efficient big data processing while enhancing privacy through Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) protocols within quantum federated learning. It explores how quantum technologies improve processing efficiency and privacy, analyzing the scalability and communication overheads of federated learning systems enhanced by Quantum Secure MPC.
UDG Alliance (UDGA), Geneva, Switzerland
UDG Alliance is a non-for profit organization based in Switzerland with a focus on research involving emerging technologies. Within the project, UDG Alliance is leading legal and ethical compliance activities, ensuring that the project’s activities are aligned with current and upcoming normative requirements. On the basis of the exploitation strategy, it guides partners in adequately securing their Intellectual Property Rights and provides the framework to that end. Finally, UDGA is leading the communication strategy and planning within the project.
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