Call for Demonstrator projects

Scope of the Call

“Demonstrator projects” demonstrate the added value of the SPHN data resources and infrastructure elements for data-driven personalized health research, clinical and public health research, and clinical use. Demonstrator projects use the SPHN infrastructures, processes, and frameworks, to demonstrate the utility and fit-for-purpose of those SPHN ecosystem elements and to identify gaps.

Demonstrator projects in the following two areas are eligible for funding:

1. Infrastructure components: Operational application (in daily practice) or transferability (to another setting) of infrastructure components, systems or tools developed locally along the goals of SPHN or as part of SPHN-funded projects;

• • Infrastructure components can be data platforms, data-processing tools, etc. of minimum viable product (MVP) maturity that serve the goals of SPHN. Examples include, but are not limited to, products of previous SPHN-funded Infrastructure Development and Driver projects, tools to automatize structuring, deidentifying or otherwise processing health data for personalized health research and application.
  • Operational application must be based on real-world use cases, for instance from research, clinical care and quality assurance, public health.
  • Transferability to another setting comprises the successful onboarding of new stakeholders, for instance from additional institutions, from different fields of research/care, or for a new purpose than the original setting.
  • The vested interest from the (new) stakeholders, the feasibility of implementing the infrastructure component, its added value and costs for the specific use case shall be demonstrated and ideally quantified.

2. Routine healthcare data: Leveraging the potential and validating the use of routine healthcare data from the UH Clinical Data Warehouses (CDW) for translational and clinical research projects, clinical trials (proof-of-principle studies), or other real-world use cases;

• • The main source of data must be routine healthcare data readily available from the UH CDW.
  • The routine healthcare data shall then be used and further processed for a real-world use case from research, clinical care and quality assurance, public health, etc. This may include proof of principle studies how routine healthcare data could facilitate or complement randomized clinical trials in the future.

Demonstrator projects may include international collaborations or public-private partnerships and could synergize with ongoing SPHN projects, projects funded by the ETH Domain «Strategic Focus Area in Personalized Health and Related Technologies» (PHRT), or research projects funded through other instruments and organizations.

Demonstrator projects shall not build new infrastructure from scratch, but consolidate what has been started, complement missing links, and assess applicability and impact on clinical decision making and personalized health research.

To “test drive” the infrastructure, processes and interoperability of SPHN in a research or real-world clinical context, milestones of Demonstrator projects shall reveal and report the readiness of the infrastructure to support the specific use case.