After two days of reflecting, demonstrating and working hands-on with the INDICATE infrastructure, today we turned our attention to the future: How do we sustain INDICATE and build an organisation that can continue to grow beyond the project?

Prof. Dr. Christian Jung opened with a reflection on how far we have come. From writing the original grant (an intense process!) to today, where the project really starts to materialise in a very valuable cooperation: hospitals are preparing for onboarding, the federated data platform is taking shape, and potential new partners are already coming forward.

Dr. Michel van Genderen: “We are not only building a platform. We are building trust.”

Trust between hospitals, researchers and partners. Trust that data can be used responsibly. And trust within a community that is getting to know each other better and growing together. A community of people with expertise, commitment and trust in one another. No single party can build this alone.

🌍 So how do we take that community beyond the project?

Today Hylke Kingma from KPMG introduced the ambition for INDICATE beyond May 2028: build a sustainable entity supporting a growing ecosystem of data providers, data users and research projects. Hylke: “Hospitals need to move from local data capture to ecosystem-ready data reuse. ”

The work hospitals are doing today to prepare for INDICATE can therefore also help them prepare for the European Health Data Space and a future in which health data can be reused securely and responsibly across a wider European ecosystem.

Mark Driessen and Anouk Kruiswijk from KPMG then took us further into what that the future organisation could look like to support sustained operations after the end of the project phase.

Moving from a European project to sustainable and scalable operations means making choices about governance, organisation and financing. It requires a solid business model, clear roles and an organisation that can evolve as the number of participants, services and research projects grows.

It also requires a clear value proposition: why should hospitals, data users and partners join INDICATE and why should they remain part of the community?

Anouk also gave us an important reminder: “Building a sustainable organisation is not the goal in itself. It is the means to continue creating impact. The ultimate goal remains what it has been from the start: improving healthcare and outcomes for patients.”

That feels like a fitting perspective for our final day in Rome!

Over these three days, we moved from reflecting on two years of progress, to putting federated learning and onboarding into practice, and finally to asking how we can make what we are building last.

To sum up: 

• The platform is materialising
• The community is growing
• The trust is being built

Now it is time to build the future around it. 🇪🇺