Abstract

The BigMedilytics project was ambitious right from the start. With 35 partners across European Union (EU)Member States and beyond, including clinicians, data scientists, technologists, and social scientists, as well as commercial enterprises, the logistics of coordinating the project alone were a significant challenge. But we need to step back at this point. The project did not only depend on successful crossdisciplinary communication between experts in their own fields; this was healthcare, involving vast amounts of special-category personal data shared across organizations and borders. The regulatory landscape alone required careful navigation at a time when the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was still relatively new, increasing the sensitivity of healthcare providers and researchers still trying to understand how to identify and mitigate risks within their control.