Europe faces persistent barriers in accessing high-quality, privacy-preserving and interoperable health data. Hospitals, researchers, and industry partners work within highly fragmented data environments, constrained by GDPR, strict governance processes, and limited mechanisms for cross-institutional data sharing. These barriers slow research and the development of trustworthy AI tools across major disease areas—including oncology, cardiovascular disease, stroke, and gastrointestinal disorders. At the same time, emerging EU policy frameworks such as the European Health Data Space (EHDS) and the AI Act highlight the need for secure, FAIR-aligned approaches to health data access, reuse, and innovation.
SEARCH directly addresses these challenges by combining synthetic data generation, federated analytics, and robust governance frameworks to enable secure, scalable, and regulation-ready medical data innovation. Through extensive engagement with clinicians, data managers, and technical stakeholders, the project ensures that solutions are grounded in real operational requirements.
During the first reporting period, SEARCH established the foundational elements required for this ecosystem: user and technical requirements (56 prioritised needs across 25 organisations), mapping of 140 real-world clinical datasets, and a modular federated architecture for secure data discovery, harmonisation, and model training. The project also delivered the first Synthetic Data Assessment and Credibility (SDAC) Framework, providing structured methods for evaluating privacy, fidelity, utility, and fairness of synthetic datasets—essential for regulatory readiness.
SEARCH’s overall objectives are to:
Develop high-fidelity multimodal synthetic data aligned with FAIR principles.
Build a federated platform enabling secure distributed analytics while preserving data sovereignty.
Apply and validate these methods across six clinical studies.
Establish pathways for exploitation, regulatory alignment, and long-term sustainability.
Through these activities, SEARCH aims to reduce barriers to data access, accelerate AI development, and strengthen Europe’s capacity for safe, trustworthy digital health innovation.
