Newsletter March 2025
Welcome to the VELES newsletter, the Smart Health Excellence Hub in South-East Europe. Find out what we have done in the last three months.
Major Milestone: European Health Data Space (EHDS) Regulation Published
In March, the Regulation on the European Health Data Space (EHDS) was officially published—a huge step towards a more secure and efficient digital health ecosystem!
- Empowering Citizens: Seamless access to medical records across the EU, giving individuals greater control over their health data.
- Driving Innovation: Researchers and policymakers can leverage anonymized data to accelerate healthcare breakthroughs and crisis preparedness.
- Phased Rollout: Key milestones in 2025, 2029, and beyond will ensure smooth implementation.
Additionally, on January 21, the EU Council adopted the EHDS regulation, making cross-border health data exchange even easier. Learn more in this press release.
VELES Place-Based Transformation Stakeholder Workshop
On January 10, we launched the year with an insightful Place-Based Transformation Stakeholder Workshop, held online. This initiative focuses on driving innovation within smart health ecosystems in Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, and Cyprus.
- Assessed the local relevance of the Transformational Framework.
- Aligned with national strategies and concepts.
- Addressed challenges in national-level implementation.
Expertly facilitated by Chalmers Industriteknik and InnEurope, this workshop was a crucial step towards refining our framework for smart health transformation.
VELES Plenary Meeting – Bucharest, February 11-12
Our third plenary meeting in Bucharest, hosted by UEFISCDI, brought the Consortium Partners together to refine the Regional Smart Health Data Space.
Key Highlights:
- Legal, Ethical & Business Aspects – Ensuring secure and responsible health data use.
- Smart Health Data Integration Framework – Strengthening interoperability.
- Pilot Studies Deep Dive – Progress updates on: Cerebral Tumors (Romania) | Alzheimer’s Disease (Bulgaria) | Cancer Treatment (Greece) | Dementia (Cyprus)
- Strategic Next Steps – Mapping out future milestones.
On the second day, UEFISCDI led a foresight workshop, using visioning exercises to anticipate the future of the Health Data Space. This session identified key priorities, challenges, and opportunities, providing valuable insights to guide the next phases of our work.
New Publication – Advancing Cancer Treatment by Strategically Integrating Multimodal Data: Challenges and Opportunities
We’re thrilled to share our latest position paper on how multimodal data—genomic, proteomic, imaging, and clinical data—can revolutionize personalized cancer care.
Key Insights:
- Tailored Therapies – Unlocking the potential of personalized treatments.
- Semantic Interoperability – Bridging the gap between raw data and meaningful insights.
- Machine Learning & Ontologies – Enhancing data integration.
- Interdisciplinary Collaboration – Uniting oncology, data science, and bioinformatics.
Haridimos Kondylakis, Angelina Kouroubali, Dimitrios G. Katehakis: Advancing Cancer Treatment by Strategically Integrating Multimodal Data: Challenges and Opportunities. Proceedings of the 3rd Workshop on Semantic Interoperability in Data Spaces, Co-located with the European Big Data Value Forum 2024 (EBDVF2024), Budapest, Hungary, October 1, 2024. [full-text-semantic.
VELES at Key Industry Events
Athens Digital Health Week 2025 (January 27-31)
VELES was showcased during this event, where our Greek and Cypriot partners—CYENS Centre of Excellence, JOIST, HDHC, National eHealth Authority Cyprus, and 3AE Health LTD—shared insights on pilot preparations and demonstrated how 3ahealth’s EHR and mobile health app integrate with EHDS standards.
Data Sharing Festival 2025 – The Hague (February 4)
At the “Data Sharing in Health” Workshop, Irena Pavlova (GATE) presented VELES, highlighting governance, infrastructure, and compliance as critical pillars of secure health data spaces.
Olga Galanets (IDSA) introduced DATAPACT, a framework embedding compliance, ethics, and sustainability into AI-powered health data pipelines.
NFDI4DS Lecture Series – (February 6)
Olga Galanets (IDSA) presented on Building Data Spaces, exploring how dataPACT integrates compliance, ethics, and sustainability into health data management—closely aligning with VELES’s mission.
DATAMITE Meet Up – Athens (February 6)
At this EU-wide data event, George Dimitriou (HDHC) spoke on “Data Exploitation in the Health Sector”, sharing insights from Greece’s digital health ecosystem and VELES.
Watch the full event on DATAMITE’s YouTube channel.
Data Spaces Symposium – Warsaw (March 11-12)
We were honored to take the stage at Data Spaces Symposium 2025!
In the panel “The Future of Healthcare – Unlocking Value Creation Through Data Sharing,” we shared our vision for the Regional Smart Health Data Space and its four pilot studies.
A big thank you to Irena Pavlova (GATE) and Olga Galanets (IDSA) for presenting our work! Kudos to the organizers: Data Spaces Support Centre, Data Spaces Business Alliance, Gaia-X, IDSA, FIWARE, and BDVA.
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Upcoming Events You Shouldn’t Miss
- AI & Healthcare Webinar – March 28 (9:00 – 12:30 CET)
How will EU AI initiatives shape the future of healthcare? Join the webinar to explore AI, healthcare, and life sciences use cases and collaborate with key industry players.
Who should attend? Health researchers, care ecosystem members, AI developers, patients, regulators, and innovators. Register here!
- SPINOFF Conference 2025 – Sofia, June 19-20
The 4th edition of Spinoff Bulgaria will focus on NEIA, Horizon Europe, deep-tech investment, and R&I regulation. Don’t miss this opportunity to network with top industry leaders! Learn details.
How You Can Support Us
If you’re passionate about smart health and our progress toward establishing the RSHDS, connect with us on LinkedIn, Facebook, or visit our website.
And if you think someone else might be interested too, please share this newsletter with them or encourage them to subscribe here.
Thank you for reading us,
VELES Excellence Hub Team