The European project SEARCH celebrated its second annual meeting from 23rd – 24th October ’25 in Athens, Greece. More than 50 participants from the 28 partners of the project attended the various sessions and fruitful panel discussions that took place during the plenary meeting.

The meeting was designed to foster interdisciplinary interactions​. Discussions addressed topics such as data mapping, the creation of the federated platform for distributed machine learning and the generation of synthetic medical datasets to support research while preserving privacy. Later sessions focused on clinical decision support systems, validation, and demonstration; industry collaborations, and effective communication and dissemination of results. The consortium also reviewed the data management plan and agreed on key milestones and next steps for the coming year.

SEARCH main milestones

The project’s coordinator and the work package and task leaders of SEARCH presented the main milestones achieved during the first year of the project:

• Completion of 22 deliverables across 7 WPs, laying the technical, clinical, ethical, and governance foundations.
• Defined user and technical requirements through stakeholder consultation (D1.1, D1.2).
• Established a dataset registry (140+ datasets) with metadata and usability mapping for federation and synthetic generation (D1.7).
• Delivered the SEARCH platform architecture and interoperability specifications (D1.3–D1.5).
• Formulated the first version of the Synthetic Data Assessment Framework (SDAC) covering privacy, fidelity, utility, and fairness (D1.11).
• Initial implementations of Machine Learning (ML) – Artificial Intelligence (AI) methodologies for synthetic medical data generation (D3.1).
• Prepared clinical study initiation packages for multiple validation studies (WP4, e.g., cardiovascular, stroke, GI, oncology).
• Developed exploitation strategy and business model options (WP5).
• Rolled out communication and dissemination framework, including joint activities with other IHI/EU projects (WP6).
• Delivered governance, ethics, and risk management frameworks (WP7).

SEARCH next challenges

All the work carried out during the first year of the SEARCH project is aligned with its overarching mission: to create an integrated, secure, and privacy-preserving ecosystem where healthcare data can be shared and used across sectors, unlocking new possibilities in diagnostics, treatment, and personalised medicine. While significant progress has been made, the project still has three years ahead to achieve its full vision. During the meeting, the consortium focused on identifying and addressing some of the key challenges for the next 12 months:

• Moving from design to implementation, integrating ML models and datasets into the federated architecture.
• Ensuring metadata completeness, harmonisation, and ontology alignment for interoperability across sites.
• Advancing synthetic data generation pipelines with stronger validation under SDAC.
• Operationalising clinical study protocols, securing ethics/regulatory approvals.
• Addressing bias, interpretability, and robustness of generative models.
• Aligning with emerging regulations (AI Act, GDPR, HTA requirements) and external policy frameworks.
• Demonstrating clear added value of synthetic data in real clinical workflows and decision support.
• Strengthening sustainability and exploitation pathways for long-term uptake.

The discussions in Athens reaffirmed the SEARCH consortium’s commitment to innovation, collaboration, and responsible data use. With a strong foundation built during its first year, the project is now moving towards a new phase focused on implementation, validation, and real-world impact, paving the way towards a future where secure and ethical data sharing empowers innovation and transforms healthcare across Europe.