PROJECTS

OHDSI Belgium is the national node of the global OHDSI community, created to strengthen collaboration around observational health data in Belgium. Emerging organically from the Belgian EHDEN community, the node quickly grew through strong interest from data partners, SMEs, researchers, and other stakeholders. With a deliberately flat and unfunded structure, OHDSI Belgium focuses on empowering its members, not centralizing services.

As part of its mission to improve health through open science and open-source principles, OHDSI Belgium supports national participation in international OHDSI studies and contributes to building a trustworthy, FAIR, and well-governed Belgian health data ecosystem. The node also aligns Belgian efforts with the European OHDSI chapter, the European Health Data Space, and national legislation.

UHasselt is the co-founder and co-leader of OHDSI Belgium. Liesbet M. Peeters serves as co-chair of the Node (together with Annelies Verbiest, UZA), and Ilse Vermeulen acts as Node Manager.

ELIXIR Belgium is the national node of ELIXIR, a major European research infrastructure that connects life science data, tools, and services across countries. Supported by the Flemish Research Foundation (FWO) as an International Research Infrastructure (IRI), ELIXIR Belgium strengthens life science research by providing guidelines for research data management, reproducible analysis, training, compute resources, and domain-specific services spanning plant and biodiversity research, human health, and COVID-19.

UHasselt contributes to ELIXIR Belgium by advancing secure, innovative ways to connect and use real-world health data. After leading the multiple sclerosis use case within the Human Data cluster (2018–2022), UHasselt now focuses on mapping the complex landscape of health data initiatives, reducing sociological and organisational barriers to data reuse, and developing practical “playbooks” through sandboxed use cases that explore centralized to fully federated data infrastructures (incl. development of the FL Kit).

The Flanders AI Research (FAIR) Program is part of the Impulse Program of the Flemish Ministry of Economy, Science and Innovation. Within this program, professor Peeters acts as the use case lead of the Use Case multiple sclerosis. To date, 14 principle investigators of 6 different research department across 4 universities are involved. The use case team consists of 16 PhD students and 4 PostDocs.

Recently, the Flemish Ministry of Economy, Science and Innovation approved the Remote Clinical Monitoring Center Initiative. This initiative aims to develop and implement a modular data-integration, data-analytics and integrated healthcare service platform. Professor Peeters acts as the lead architect of this platform.

As part of the EU Technical Support Instrument (TSI) project, supported by the European Commission (DG REFORM), Belgium is developing an innovative Population Health Management (PHM) strategy. The PHM Unit at ACHG, in collaboration with Data4PHM, Hasselt University, and the University of Antwerp, leads this initiative.

A PHM dashboard can drive proactive, data-driven healthcare. The PROSPeCD study identifies functional and user requirements to optimize such a tool. Focus groups in three living labs—Zorgzaam Leuven, Antwerp, and Limburg—provided insights into user expectations.

Key identified functions include:

• Regional environmental analysis: Identifying trends and risk factors.
• Risk stratification and intervention selection: Targeting vulnerable groups.
• Advanced analytics tools: Supporting research and expert analysis.

Two primary user groups were defined:

• Population Health Managers: Healthcare providers and policymakers requiring accessible health data.
• Expert Population Health Managers: Researchers needing advanced analytics.

Based on these insights, a mockup PHM dashboard was developed, outlining a future vision for data-driven population health management in Belgium.

Via this link you can consult the report on the PROSPeCD study.

EBRAINS is a European digital research infrastructure created through the EU-funded Human Brain Project (HBP). It provides a broad range of data, tools, and services for brain-related research—spanning data management and curation, brain atlases, modeling and simulation, neurorobotics, and the Medical Informatics Platform. As an ESFRI initiative, EBRAINS strengthens Europe’s scientific integration and supports innovation in neuroscience, medicine, and industry.

EBRAINS PREP (2021–2024) aimed to establish the long-term organisational, legal, technical, and financial foundations that would allow EBRAINS to transition into a sustainable “Hub-and-Node” research infrastructure. This preparatory phase focused on securing national node commitments, defining governance, and designing the service architecture needed for EBRAINS’ future operational phase.

While the EBRAINS Research Infrastructure remains fully active at the European level, the Belgian Node concluded its activities at the end of 2024 due to insufficient sustainable funding.

UHasselt served as the Belgian National Node Lead, with Liesbet M. Peeters as Head of Node and member of the National Node Board, and Ilse Vermeulen as Node Manager. UHasselt contributed to multiple aspects of EBRAINS PREP and helped shape the Belgian participation in the evolving European infrastructure.

MS Data Alliance (2019–2024) was a global, non-profit, multi-stakeholder initiative dedicated to accelerating data-driven insights to improve care and treatment for people with multiple sclerosis (MS). Operating under the umbrella of the European Charcot Foundation and supported by several industry partners, the Alliance connected clinicians, researchers, patients, industry, and policy makers to advance the trustworthy use of real-world MS data.

The initiative combined two complementary approaches:

• The Academy, which raised awareness of the value of real-world MS data, strengthened a multi-stakeholder ecosystem, and promoted responsible, transparent data use.

• The Toolbox, which developed practical tools to help stakeholders find, assess, and reuse real-world MS data more efficiently.

UHasselt was a core partner and played a central leadership role through Liesbet M. Peeters, who chaired the Core Group. This group—UHasselt, KU Leuven, UMC Göttingen, EMSP, i~HD, and the European Charcot Foundation—was responsible for strategic direction, governance, and sustainability of the Alliance. UHasselt team members also led much of the day-to-day operational work until the conclusion of the initiative in 2024.

This project aims to build an IT platform for different finalities. One of those finalities is boosting MS research at Noorderhart / the UMSC.