Health: Data ingestion capacities and data services for the European Genomic Data Infrastructure in the European Health Data Space: data storage and processing capacity

Opened

Programme Category

EU Competitive Programmes

Programme Name

Digital Europe Programme

Programme Description

Digital Europe Programme is the first EU programme that aims to accelerate the recovery and drive the digital transformation of Europe.

Worth €7.6 billion (in current prices), the Programme is a part of the next long-term EU budget, (the Multiannual Financial Framework), and it covers 2021 to 2027. It will provide funding for projects in five crucial areas: supercomputing, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, advanced digital skills, and ensuring the wide use of digital technologies across the economy and society.

The Programme is fine-tuned to fill the gap between the research of digital technologies and their deployment, and to bring the results of research to the market – for the benefit of Europe’s citizens and businesses, and in particular SMEs. Investments under the Digital Europe programme supports the Union’s twin objectives of a green transition and digital transformation and strengthens the Union’s resilience and strategic autonomy.

Programme Details

Identifier Code

DIGITAL-2026-AI-09-DS-HEALTH-STORAGE

Call

Health: Data ingestion capacities and data services for the European Genomic Data Infrastructure in the European Health Data Space: data storage and processing capacity

Summary

This action supports the acquisition and set-up of a secure federated data storage and processing capacity for the 1+MG data infrastructure, which is expected to be operated by the relevant EDIC.

It should include “hot storage” working in synergy with secure processing environments aligned with the EHDS requirements, such as compliance checks for secure processing environments and detached long-term storage for curated data made available to the 1+MG by the data providers, including the Genome of Europe dataset.

The data storage capacity should be designed based on an agreed data storage optimisation strategy, and balancing between storage costs and data depth/breadth/versioning while considering the most appropriate data storage architecture, technology and legal aspects, and ensuring scalability.

Detailed Call Description

This action contributes to boosting the capacity of Member States to sequence human genomes through scaling up dedicated secure data storage and processing environments. Data volume is crucial in genomics analytics, and efficient storage and management of large data sets, such as genomics, is essential; to ensure efficient processing, genomic data storage solutions should be flexible and scale with needs. Genomic data, once curated, must not only be stored safely, but also be processed in secure processing environments, which is a particular challenge with the highly voluminous genomic data.

This action relates to the potential creation of a European Digital Infrastructure Consortium for genomic data (Genome EDIC) and supports the activities related to operating the 1+MG data infrastructure established with the support of Digital Europe under Work Programme 2021-2022 (GDI project), including its alignment with the requirements, technical specifications, and processes established by the EHDS Regulation to ensure a smooth functioning within the HealthData@EU infrastructure.

As part of the 1+MG initiative implementation, this action builds on the outputs and results of the 1+MG implementing projects, and will establish a collaboration agreement with the Genome of Europe (GoE project, supported under Digital Europe Work Programme 2022-2023), to contribute ensuring safe storage and processing capacity for the European reference genome data within the 1+MG data infrastructure.

Call Total Budget

€17.500.000

Financing percentage by EU or other bodies / Level of Subsidy or Loan

50%

Thematic Categories

  • Information and Communication Technologies
  • Information Technology
  • Research, Technological Development and Innovation

Eligibility for Participation

  • Central Government
  • Legal Entities
  • Private Bodies
  • Researchers/Research Centers/Institutions
  • Services Providers
  • State-owned Enterprises

Eligibility For Participation Notes

In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:

  • be legal entities (public or private bodies)
  • be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.:
    • EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs)
    • non-EU countries (except for topics with restrictions; see below):

Beneficiaries and affiliated entities must register in the Participant Register — before submitting the proposal — and will have to be validated by the Central Validation Service (REA Validation). For the validation, they will be requested to upload documents showing legal status and origin.

Health: Data ingestion capacities and data services for the European Genomic Data Infrastructure in the European Health Data Space: data storage and processing capacity

  • minimum 5 independent applicants (beneficiaries; not affiliated entities) from 5 different eligible countries

Call Opening Date

04/11/2025

Call Closing Date

03/03/2026

National Contact Point(s)

Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digital Policy

Directorate of Research and Innovation

Eleana Gabriel
Telephone: +357 22 691918
Email: egabriel@dmrid.gov.cy