New SPHN Sounding Board launched 

On 4 March 2026, the Sounding Board of the Swiss Personalized Health Network (SPHN) convened in Bern for its inaugural meeting. More than 30 experts representing a broad spectrum of stakeholders and institutions gathered at the House of Academies. SPHN is a national data infrastructure coordinated by the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences (SAMS) and the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics. 

06.03.2026

Teaser Image New Governance Structure SPHN

A new advisory body for SPHN 

The Sounding Board was established as part of the Confederation’s SPHN mandate for 2025–2028. It reflects SPHN’s commitment to including the needs and perspectives of all stakeholders and partner institutions in the network’s strategic development. 

Bringing together representatives from the full breadth of Switzerland’s health, research, and policy landscape, the Sounding Board is tasked with reflecting on SPHN’s strategy, guidelines, and implementation plans. It can also propose and endorse projects and working groups that strengthen SPHN’s embedding in the national health research environment and ensure seamless interfaces with all relevant partners. 

Focus of the kickoff meeting 

At the first meeting, the board members became acquainted with one another and gained a shared understanding of SPHN’s mission, organization, current activities, and challenges. A discussion session centered on how SPHN’s strategic goals should be prioritized to enable multicentric data-driven health research for the benefit of patients.  

The Sounding Board showed common ground on the following aspects:  

  • Many patients consent to the reuse of their health data for research purposes. Data sharing culture across the research community and healthcare institutions is key to unlock the potential of this data. 
  • It must be as easy as possible for hospitals to provide clinical data for research projects. 
  • Health data needs to be FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable). 
  • Public-Private Partnerships offer interesting opportunities for sustainable implementation.  
  • We need to join efforts, expertise and resources. SPHN is ideally equipped to coordinate.  
  • Patient trust is key in everything we do.  

Strengthening Switzerland’s personalized health landscape 

With the establishment of the Sounding Board, SPHN reinforces its inclusive governance model and its commitment to transparent, collaborative development of national research data infrastructures. The board’s work will play a key role in ensuring that SPHN continues to evolve in accordance with scientific, clinical, and societal expectations. 

Member organizations of the Sounding Board 

  • University hospitals: Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV), Geneva University Hospitals (HUG), Insel Group, University Hospital Basel (USB), University Hospital Zurich (USZ), University Children's Hospital Zurich (Kispi), University Children's Hospital Basel (UKBB) 
  • Cantonal hospitals: Ente Ospedaliero Cantonale (EOC), Cantonal Hospital Aarau (KSA), Health Ostschweiz (H-OCH), Cantonal Hospital Baden (KSB) 
  • H+ Swiss Hospitals 
  • Swissuniversities, Collège des Doyens 
  • ETH Domain: ETH Zurich (ETHZ), EPF Lausanne (EPFL), Swiss Data Science Center (SDSC)
  • Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences (SAMS)
  • SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB) 
  • Research organizations: Swiss Clinical Trial Organisation (SCTO), Swiss Biobanking Platform (SBP), Swiss Cancer Institute (SCI), Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+) 
  • Funding organizations: Innosuisse, Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) 
  • Two patient partners 
  • Industry: Interpharma, Swiss Medical Technology Association (SWISS MEDTECH) 
  • National Data Streams 
Read more about the governance of SPHN
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