Kick-off of HeliX in Portugal: federated learning to unlock the potential of health data in the EU

On 27 October 2025, in Porto, the kick-off of HeliX – Health Ecosystem for Learning and Innovation Across Sovereign Data Space took place, a European project coordinated by Health Cluster Portugal (HCP) and funded by the Interregional Innovation Investments (I3) Instrument. Over 3 years, HeliX brings together 14 partners from Portugal, Italy, Hungary and Poland, and aims to unlock the potential of health data by connecting data holders with secondary users through a cloud–edge platform with federated learning that enables data to be analysed at source, driving the use of AI and advanced analytics at scale while safeguarding privacy.

The consortium comprises: Health Cluster Portugal (PT), ULS de Coimbra (PT), Prologica (PT), Opvance (PT), SYNLAB SDN SRL (IT), BioTekNet – Centro Regionale di Competenza in Biotecnologie Industriali (IT), Distretto Tecnologico Campania Bioscience (IT), Istituto Nazionale Tumori – Fondazione Pascale (IT), Pineta Grande S.p.A. (IT), Healthcare Poland Foundation (PL), E-GROUP ICT Software (HU), Spicy Analytics (HU), Hungarian Innovation Agency – NIÜ (HU) and EIT Health InnoStars (DE).

With a total budget estimated at around €9 million, HeliX will advance the platform from TRL6 to TRL9 and promote interoperability across fragmented databases, creating a sustainable ecosystem for research, innovation and market analytics within sovereign data spaces. In parallel, the project aligns with the relevant European frameworks (EHDS, Data Act and AI Act) and will mobilise cascade funding to broaden the value chain, including direct support for SMEs.

The kick-off event enabled partners to align expectations, showcase capabilities and set the first implementation milestones. On the following day, the partners also took part in the HCP Annual Conference, in a public session  “Unlocking Health Data with AI: The HeliX Impact Session”  dedicated to presenting the project and discussing key topics: secondary use of data and Artificial Intelligence, opportunities and collaboration challenges among partners, regulatory compliance, and the sustainability of such European projects to ensure long-term impact.