Inria participates in the creation of PariSanté Campus

The health crisis that the world has been going through since Covid-19's eruption shows how essential it is to make available to the scientific community, for the greatest benefit of the world's populations, an instrument intended for very high-level medical research, devoted in particular to better exploitation of health data. This is why the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation and the Ministry of Health have encouraged the creation of a Digital Health Research and Innovation Campus on the Val-de-Grâce site, in order to develop, with public players such as Inserm, PSL University, Inria, the Digital Health Agency and the Health Data Hub, the synergies and interdisciplinarity they had already begun.

This campus will pool skills and expertise and make databases and equipment available to the community. PariSanté Campus will also host an international conference centre enabling researchers from all over the world to meet and share the results of their research. A business hotel and an incubator for start-ups will house companies wishing to benefit from this fertile environment. Bringing together public players and private partners, this campus will make it possible to meet the needs of all players in the health sector, such as support for the development of entrepreneurial projects, training, and the provision of tools for innovation and experimentation.

Located in the heart of Paris, in a place emblematic of medical excellence, the site of the former Val-de-Grâce army training hospital will be connected to a nearby ecosystem rich in universities, hospitals, research centres and start-up incubators. Thanks to it, France will consolidate its position as a major player in digital health research and development, alongside existing centres in the United States, Asia and Europe. The founders and partners of the PariSanté Campus will meet from 2021 in a prefiguring location in order to strengthen synergies and interdisciplinarity. PariSanté Campus is also part of a global government strategy to strengthen the resources dedicated to digital health research and innovation.

Faced with the world leaders in digital technology, Europe must promote a model of digital health that places people at the heart of its values. Its success depends on taking into account three major challenges:

• Strengthening its capacity to collect data, making it accessible and usable. In line with the recommendations of the WHO report entitled WHO Global Strategy on digital health 2020-2024, such a project requires multi-scale collaboration to increase the scope and effectiveness of digital health, to ensure that it constantly corresponds to the needs, priorities, profiles and strategic objectives that each country sets for itself.
• Structuring a French digital health technology industry. While health is a universal right, it also raises major economic issues, notably linked to the many proven and future uses of massive health data. The structuring of a French industrial sector of health technologies presupposes the setting up of public-private partnerships in line with the recommendations of the European Federation of Medical Academies and the report entitled 'Artificial intelligence in healthcare: is Europe ready?'
• Protecting citizens' data and supervising their use. Finally, all this requires new technological and ethical means to protect people against the collection and misuse of increasingly sophisticated personal data: the existence of our health democracy is at stake.