 UNIVERSITY OF ULSTER (ULSTER) (Coordinator)
https://www.ulster.ac.uk/faculties/computing-engineering-and-the-built-environment RTO, Northern Ireland – United Kingdom Ulster University is a cosmopolitan university, employing over 2,500 staff, and enabling a cohort of almost 27,000 students to meet their personal and professional ambitions. The University is multi-campus across 4 areas in Northern Ireland. The Ulster University team is comprised of individuals from the Faculty of Computing, Engineering and the Built Environment at Ulster. The Faculty has a long track record in both teaching and research activities relating to healthcare technology. This has included the realisation of the importance of considering the needs of users of healthcare services and technology by investing in user-centred design approaches including living lab and triple-helix stakeholder partnerships bringing together companies, academia and the public sector to work with users (http://www.openlivinglabs.eu/node/139). We also have invested heavily in a User Experience Lab (http://ux-lab.org), which has also just secured funding to be further expanded into a UX and PPI lab working with local companies and user groups to understand the user experience. We also host a Connected Health Innovation Centre (CHIC) (http://www.ni-chic.org), focused on business led research in the area of connected health. CHIC seeks to lead transformational research which aligns care needs with technology providers, researchers and clinical experience. Finally, our research group on Smart Environments (SERG) (http://scm.ulster.ac.uk/~scmresearch/SERG/), offers smart environment research facilities employing an integrated and multidisciplinary approach to advance research to support and monitor people within their home and beyond. SERG’s strategy is strongly aligned with local, national and European initiatives in the development of technologies for independent living in an ageing society. The Faculty also has a long and proud history of expertise in Data Analytics both in terms of machine learning algorithms and the application of analytical techniques across a diverse range of domains. This has culminated in the funding and launch of the new Cognitive Analytics Research Lab (CARL – https://www.ulster.ac.uk/cognitive-analytics-research/home) which is a cutting edge cognitive analytics research centre bringing together businesses, government and advanced research. CARL is conceived and built from the ground up through collaborative consultation with our industry and civic stakeholders with a strong focus on economic and societal impact. Ulster is Lead Coordinator for the MIDAS project and as well as contributing to all Workpackages leads WP1 Project Management as well as WP7 Dissemination and Exploitation. Prof Jonathan Wallace from the Ulster Team also Chairs the Policy Board for MIDAS. |
 DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY (DCU)
RTO, Ireland Dublin City University has forged a reputation as Ireland’s University of Enterprise, through its strong, active links with academic, research and industry partners both at home and overseas. DCU provides a unique learning and research environment where students and academics are both encouraged to develop their creativity and skills as innovators. DCU values all forms of enterprise, both commercial and public sector. The Business School and the School of Nursing and Human Sciences are working on MIDAS, bringing together two complementary perspectives on evaluation, as well as expertise in business, enterprise, health systems, and public health. Together we offer a valuable and original perspective on health, health information, and European health care. DCU are responsible for Work Package 6 in the MIDAS project which relates to integration evaluation and impact assessment. The main objective of this Work package is to support the other work packages in maximising their impact on health care, health policy, health and ICT industry, health and research. |
 IBM IRELAND LTD (IBM)
Industry, Ireland IBM is one of Ireland’s leading providers of advanced information technology, products, services and business consulting expertise. We are dedicated to helping our clients innovate and succeed through the end-to-end transformation of their business models and the application of innovative technology and business solutions. IBM Ireland Lab in Dublin Cork and Galway is an integral part of the IBM Corporation and plays a vital role in the ‘Global IBM Community’. The Lab is the main site for the development of a broad set of IBM product portfolios in the cloud, analytics, mobile, social and security spacefor the Cognitive Era. Within the lab, IBM Innovation Exchange (IIX) has an overarching remit that intersects with each of the product teams within the lab. Our IIX Team has a positive track record in securing participation in R&D collaborations funded through national programmes, it has a history of demonstrating commercial impact through jobs and employment growth via these collaborations. The underlying remit of the IIX is to ensure effective delivery of the collaborative projects managed at the Lab, the connectivity of external project participants with the right skills, expertise and competencies within IBM worldwide. |
 ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY (ASU)
RTO, United States Arizona Board of Regents seeks to provide leadership and a unifying voice on key higher education issues and to influence public policy through advocacy and initiatives founded upon evidence-based research. Synergies from a unified higher education system will provide access and the highest quality education to Arizona’s citizens. The Arizona public universities provide bachelor’s level and higher public education, advance human knowledge through scholarly research and creative expression, and serve key roles as major partners in statewide economic development and community advancement. This encompasses 4 overarching goals: Drive student educational success and learning through the delivery of a high quality education; Advance Educational Achievement within Arizona with efforts to increase the number of Arizonans with a college degree or certificate; Discover new knowledge through collaborations, inventions and technology to solve critical problems and enhance lives; Impact Arizona by engaging and serving our communities through initiatives, and partnerships focused on supporting, improving and enhancing Arizona’s economy and competiveness. |
 SOUTH EASTERN HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE TRUST (SET)
Northern Ireland The South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust is a distinct legal entity, public body, non-profit health care provider for a population of approx. 350,000, which incorporates both a cohort of rural and urban clients. Our demographic covers a wide base, from cradle to grave provision and we also operate across primary and secondary care provision. There are a number of sites, with 3 main acute hospitals, The Ulster Hospital, Dundonald, Belfast, The Downe Hospital, Downpatrick and the Lagan Valley Hospital, Lisburn. Each serves a mixture of rural and urban catchments, offering a variety of clinical disciplines, which includes, Cardiovascular Medicine, Mental Health, Diabetes, COPD, Surgery, ICU, Haematology, Oncology, Stroke, Care or the Elderly and Emergency Care. SET leads WP2 Ethics and Governance for the Project as well as Chairing the Ethics and Privacy Advisory Group (EPAG) for MIDAS. |
 TEKNOLOGIAN TUTKIMUSKESKUS V TT OY
RTO, Finland VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd is a state owned and controlled non-profit limited liability company established by law and operating under the ownership steering of the Finnish Ministry of Employment and the Economy. As an impartial non-profit Research and Technology Organisation (RTO) and with the national mandate and mission to support economic competitiveness, societal development and innovation, VTT carries out research and innovation activities for the needs of industry and knowledge – based society. In 2013, VTT’s turnover was 277 million €, with highly educated personnel of 2600. VTT’s contribution to the targets and priorities of Europe 2020 strategy is channelled through close collaboration with the Finnish Ministry of Employment and the Economy, with regional innovation networks throughout Finland and with numerous European platforms and partnerships. Within Horizon 2020, VTT aims at renewal of European industrial value chains and strengthening of dynamic ecosystems addressing Societal Challenges All VTT activities are characterised by genuine trans-disciplinary and cross-sectoral approaches and the daily project work is planned and implemented within multi-year, coordinated programmes. VTT has a vast experience of various EU projects. On average, the share of industry partners was 42% in those consortia where VTT was engaged in FP7. In 2013 alone, VTT was involved in 471 EU-funded research projects. Ranked among the leading European RTOs, VTT is committed to responsible collaboration for achieving the Europe 2020 goals by networking with Finnish and European actors in the global context. Within the business area “”Knowledge Intensive Products and Services” a research area of 60 scientists focuses on innovations in information and communication technologies to improve health and wellbeing. The area has been developing ICT innovations in healthcare and wellness for more than 20 years, and is a trusted partner of both industry as well as healthcare professionals. Its core competences include: biomedical data analysis and visualisation, big health data mining, clinical decision support systems, personal health systems, behaviour change support, eHealth and mHealth technologies, and bioinformatics. For management, VTT is relying on strong experience from EU projects, such as in FP7 ICT-VPH initiative and earlier framework programmes. VTT is WP5 – Big Data Visualisation for Public Health Decision Making leader. Furthermore, it will participate to the data analytics work package (WP4) leading Task T4.6 Extending Data Based Actionable Information with Soft Data and Expert Opinion using System Dynamic Modelling and participate in impact assessment and integration in WP6. |
 PUBLIC HEALTH ENGLAND
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/public-health-england United Kingdom PHE is an executive agency of the Department of Health established in April 2013. Its forerunner was the Health Protection Agency. PHE continues to dedicate itself to protecting people’s health in the United Kingdom. We do this by providing impartial advice and authoritative information on health protection issues to the public, to professionals and to government. Our remit however has widened beyond health protection to include health promotion and other aspects of the wider public health arena and is divided into 4 regions with 15 centres. One of the principal roles of Public Health England (PHE) is in detecting and responding to outbreaks of infectious disease and providing public health advice to those responding to chemical or radiation incidents and natural disasters. Outbreaks can be naturally occurring such as SARS and influenza or deliberate release in the case of smallpox and anthrax. At the operational end of PHE, Public Health Centres are on hand to assess and manage the risks associated with these incidents. Chemical, radiation and microbiology experts are at hand to provide additional advice. The Behavioural Science Research Team (BSRT) supports the functions of the Emergency Response Department within Public Health England. We are a team of qualified psychologists with many years of experience and specialist knowledge in areas of: risk and crisis communication for public health emergencies, psychological and behavioural responses to emergencies, evaluation of emergency preparedness exercises and operational research on mass casualty incidents including casualty decontamination. The BSRT are leading PHE’s contributions to WP2 in the form of a research project exploring public acceptability of data sharing, and to WP6 in the form of support to the impact assessment and evaluation process. |
 FUNDACION VASCA DE INNOVACION E INVESTIGACION SANITARIAS
Spain The Basque Foundation for Health Innovation and Research, BIOEF, set up by the Basque Government’s Ministry for Health in 2002, has deployed its mission and activities in a two-fold, at the operational level and at a strategic level. BIOEF takes part into the development of plans, programs or strategic initiatives, promotes the gradual structuring of Health´s R&D&I and its professional management, disseminates the results of these activities and values them, triggers transfer and exploitation of results, and supports the Ministry for Health of the Basque Government and the Basque Public Health Service-Osakidetza in those topics that are required at all times for the continuous reinvention of health services. In addition, BIOEF is responsible for the development of several programs and lines of action included in the Research and Innovation Strategy in Health 2020 and acts as technical secretary, besides being directly involved as an agent, for the Research and Innovation Smart Specialization Strategy (RIS3 Euskadi) in the Bioscience-Health area. The Foundation is a key interlocutor within the Bioregion or Bioscience´s Basque ecosystem. It facilitates and supports the business sector in its collaboration needs with the Health System, and it is the unique entity which offers the global vision about the R&D&i activity of the Basque Public Health System (people, projects, topics, funding, and etcetera.) and their outcomes. BIOEF has a transversal role throughout the whole value chain of R&D&i, and plays a key role in the public-private partnership relationship and international collaboration. It also contributes to the continuous transformation of the Health System by putting the person at the center of its activity, supporting, among other things, processes of Social-Healthcare coordination, the Health services integration, and citizen participation. BIOEF represents pediatricians, computer scientists, public health experts and researchers from the Basque Public Health System and the Ministry for Health of the Basque Government. They will participate mainly in WP2 with the following tasks: 1) To review and analyze the current legislative and good practice with regards to data access, user consent, protection, ethics, privacy and permissions systems/process across all partner jurisdictions; To create a model that is operationalised through a transferable system/ process of governance; To implement the model in partner jurisdictions and assess impact, utility and efficacy; 2) Design and develop a privacy-ensuring multi-health site collaboration architecture and logic; Definition of Data representation and structure; 3) Validation of the obtained analytical query results during and at the end of the development; 4) Support to the development of solutions for visualization of actionable information to support policy making; 5) To carry out an internal evaluation of the project and its outcomes; 6) Dissemination of MIDAS project. |
 REGIONAL BUSINESS SERVICES ORGANISATION
http://www.hscbusiness.hscni.net/ Northern Ireland – United Kingdom The Business Services Organisation (BSO) delivers a range of business support and specialist professional services to the whole of the Health and Social Care (HSC) sector. These services include procurement, technology support, human resources, legal services, family practitioner services and internal audit. Services are delivered from a number of locations throughout Northern Ireland, while the headquarters of the BSO is based at 2 Franklin Street in the centre of Belfast. BSO is established under Section 14 (1) of the Health & Social Care (Reform) Act (Northern Ireland) 2009 as the Regional Business Services Organisation. For policy/administrative purposes the BSO is classified as a Health and Social Care (HSC) body (akin to an executive non-departmental public body) and for national accounts purposes is classified to the central government sector. In common with other HSC bodies, the BSO is an Arm’s Length Body (ALB) of the Department of Health (DoH), to which it is accountable for its activity and performance. The DoH is in turn accountable, through the Minister, to the NI Assembly. The BSO contributes to health and social care in Northern Ireland by taking responsibility for the provision of business support and specialist professional services to other health and social care bodies, as directed by the DoH in accordance with Section 15 of the Reform Act. The Health and Social Care (Amendment) Act 2014 also allows the BSO to provide business support and specialist professional services to the DoH, Northern Ireland Social Care Council, Northern Ireland Practice and Education Council. |
 QUINTELLIGENCE D.O.O (QUIN)
SME, Slovenia Quintelligence is an SME located in Ljubljana, Slovenia, with experience in commercial and EU funded research projects. Quintelligence provides specialized development of high-quality big data solutions for publishing houses, media companies, telecoms and energy distribution companies. It develops solutions for audience segmentation, real-time recommendation, supply chain management and network root-cause analysis. Quintelligence primarily works on the development and application of text, web and data mining methods and tools; optimization solutions in supply chain management processes; web-based education services and solutions. In MIDAS, Quintelligence is involved in the architecture design, data harmonisation, analytics and machine learning methods implementation in data analytics and visualisation tasks. Tasks related to multilingual text mining and understanding, digital traces/social media streams analysis will also be covered. QUINT participates in WP3 complementing the already existing work with open data sources; it contributes to WP4 with media monitoring tools focusing public health topics of interest; and it is also engaged with WP5 in several aspects of complex data visualisation. |
 ANALYTICS ENGINES LIMITED (AENG)
http://www.analyticsengines.com/ SME, Northern Ireland – United Kingdom Analytics Engines Limited is a UK SME providing high performance big data and analytics software and services. Headquartered in Belfast, Northern Ireland it has a customer base across Europe and North America spanning multinationals to niche specialists. The mission of Analytics Engines is to enable organisations to easily and quickly adopt big data analytics as a core part of their business and accelerate conversion of data into business insights. Analytics Engines provide software, tools, and hardware into a range of fields including life sciences, image and video processing, logistics, manufacturing, and retail. Analytics Engines will bring its experience in developing and deploying big data analytics frameworks into the project and will provide a unified platform for use by the individual health-sites (Mainly as part of WP3, leading T3.3, but also contributing to analytics algorithms in WP4). They will be involved in enabling and supporting the technical development of other partners and in the creation of the pilot systems. They will also work on the virtualisation of heterogeneous data sets from a high level and the aggregation/anonymisation of data for running cross-site analytics models. |
 KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN (KUL)
https://www.kuleuven.be/english/ RTO, Belgium Situated in Belgium, in the heart of Western Europe, KU Leuven has been a centre of learning for nearly six centuries. Today, it is Belgium’s largest university and, founded in 1425, one of the oldest and most renowned universities in Europe. As a leading European research university and co-founder of the League of European Research Universities (LERU), KU Leuven offers a wide variety of international master’s programmes, all supported by high-quality, innovative, interdisciplinary research. Two KU Leuven research groups are participating in MIDAS: the STADIUS centre for dynamical systems, signal processing and data analytics, and the Academic Centre for General Practice (ACGP). STADIUS as a technical partner provides key expertise in data analysis and machine learning, as lead of WP4 (Data Analytics and Simulation) and contributor to WPs 3 and 5 (data sources & visualization). The ACGP provides medical expertise and access to their Intego database. Intego is a registration database of data from contributing Flemish general practitionners spread geographically across the region. |
 VICOMTECH (VICOM)
RTO, Spain Vicomtech-IK4 is an applied research centre for Multimedia, Communication and Visual Computing Technologies located in San Sebastian (Spain). Vicomtech-IK4 is a non-profit foundation established in 2001. Vicomtech-IK4 has a strong record in ICT technology transfer and applied research with companies (more than 90% of them are SMEs) in different sectors. Vicomtech-IK4 is member and co-leader of the ICT Unit of the IK4 Research Alliance, the Basque technological alliance of Applied R&D Centres with more than 1300 researchers (24% PhD) and more than 83 million Euros in EU FP7 projects in the period 2007-2013. The Department of eHealth and Biomedical Applications of Vicomtech-IK4 has more than 10 years’ experience in the research and development of graphics, imaging, computer vision, interaction, information and artificial intelligence technology for the medical, clinical, health, biology, biotechnology and pharmaceutical sectors. We closely cooperate with clinical institutions and industrial partners in the research and development of technologies, prototypes and products for computer-assisted diagnosis, therapy planning, intervention and follow-up, hospital information management, clinical decision support, support for biomedical research and clinical studies, telemedicine and home care and assistive technologies. Vicomtech-IK4 will be responsible for WP3 Data sources and architecture with a focus on the identification of data sources, data harmonisation and integration. Vicomtech-IK4 will also contribute to WP4 in algorithm review, privacy aware algorithm adaptation and feature engineering, WP5 policy dashboard design, implementation and UX validation and WP6, related to system integration and technical validation. |
 FINNISH INSTITUTE FOR HEALTH AND WELFARE (THL)
Finland The Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) studies, monitors, and develops measures to promote the well-being and health of the population in Finland. We gather and produce information based on research and register data. We also provide expertise and solutions to support decision-making. We serve various parties: the government, municipal and provincial decision-makers, actors in the social welfare and health sector, organisations, the research community, and the public. We help our customers and partners to secure quality of life for Finns in a fair but dynamic welfare society. We are an independent expert agency working under the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health. Our focus areas: We also direct and organise special services within the social welfare and health care sector. THL is one of Finland’s most internationally networked research organisations Thomson Reuters rates THL’s reference index as one of the best in Finland. Over 80% of our publications are published in world-class scientific journals. Articles published by THL are highly rated by the scientific community. |
 UNIVERSITY OF OULU (OULU)
http://www.oulu.fi/university/ RTO, Finland The University of Oulu is an international science university which creates innovation for the future, well-being, and knowledge through multidisciplinary research and education. Future innovation is about seeking, utilizing and applying new knowledge. The University of Oulu researches people and culture in a changing living environment, as well as opportunities that new technology provides for improving the well-being of people and the environment. The University of Oulu is a multidisciplinary expert in Northerness. Founded in 1958, our research and education community is 16 000 students and 3000 employees strong, and one of the biggest and the most multidisciplinary universities in Finland. The ten faculties, the many departments and the specialized research units of the University of Oulu create the foundation for cross-disciplinary research, innovation and training of experts for demanding professional tasks. There are two organisations from the University of Oulu in the MIDAS program. The Centre for Health and Technology (CHT, http://www.oulu.fi/cht/) functions as connected health innovation organisation, and Martti Ahtisaari Institute (MAI) is a research unit within AASCB accredited Oulu Business School (www.mai.fi, www.oulubusinessschool.fi). CHT is creating and developing strategic connected health RDI entities and pathways towards data driven healthcare and innovating connected health solutions together with researchers and entrepreneurs. MAI focuses on challenges of sustainable and responsible business, as well as functioning of the global markets and economy as a whole. The role of the Centre for Health and Technology (CHT, http://www.oulu.fi/cht/) in the MIDAS is to investigate the possibilities to use futuristic MyData approach. The MyData principles enable totally new type of personalized data sets to be used in decision making systems targeted to policy makers. The utilisation and the model of consent of personal wellness and health data is one of the focus areas of the MIDAS. The contribution is needed in many work packages, mostly with in the WP2, WP3 and WP5, but also others and MyData is gained with deliverables D2.8 and D2.9. MyData solution architecture and policy definition requirements are collected and representation of data in D3.3 and D3.4 are to foster the MyData reuse and interoperability in EU countries. MyData for MIDAS is also targeted to be one of the local pilot cases in Finland. The role of the Martti Ahtisaari Institute (MAI, www.mai.fi) is in the MIDAS research activities with focus on challenges of functioning policy making with sustainable and responsible business creation. The goal of the institute’s research activities is to produce new scientifically rigorous and relevant knowledge and foster innovations in MIDAS focus areas. Digitalization of the healthcare sector is one of the key research areas. Within MIDAS, MAI research focuses on investigating the use and implications of different kinds of data on healthcare policy making in local, regional and national level particularly in the case of preventive health. Participation is mainly with in WP3, WP6 and WP7, and contribution for other WP’s are needed, too. Relevant Data Source Identification is focused in the delivery of D3.1. It is to be analysed and agreed with the health policy makers and health care authorities that which kind of data is to be used in MIDAS, and the policy aims in local piloting. This is also in the focus when the impact assessment and exploitation of MIDAS is done later on in the program.
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