This volume presents the proceedings of the 2021 EFMI Special Topic Conference (STC) organized in November 2021 as a virtual conference. This conference focuses on applying the FAIR principles to accelerate health research in Europe in the post COVID-19 era. The conference invited paper submissions, in particular those related to the following topics:
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Methods for the adoption of FAIR principles
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FAIR-based precision medicine
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Artificial Intelligence in FAIR-data driven health
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Privacy and security aspects of applying FAIR in health research
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FAIR and Covid-19 (and other infectious diseases) research data
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FAIR for infrastructures and software
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Metadata, ontologies and terminologies to support the sharing of health research data
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Paradigms for sharing health research data.
All the papers in this book of proceedings received the highest marks in the peer review process, and the volume is organized into several sections. The most popular tracks among the authors were those on Metadata, Methods and Artificial Intelligence, and cover a wide area of applications. The remaining papers fall into the categories of Data and Experiences. As expected, many papers focus on FAIR and COVID-19.
STC 2021 was initially planned as a face-to-face event, to be held in Seville, Spain, and organized by the IBiS (Institute of Biomedicine of Seville) and the SEIS (“Sociedad Española de Informática de la Salud”), the Spanish representative in EFMI. However, due to the situation and travel restrictions with regard to the Covid pandemic, the conference was conducted online.
The Scientific Program Committee (SPC) included representatives from a number of EFMI Working Groups and the EFMI Board, as well as independent experts. The SPC consisted of the following: Jaime Delgado (Chair), Arriel Benis, Paula de Toledo, Parisis Gallos, Mauro Giacomini, Alicia Martínez-García and Dario Salvi.
On behalf of the Scientific Program Committee, I would first like to warmly thank all the authors who submitted their papers to the conference. Many thanks are also due to the reviewers, whose voluntary work contributed to the quality of the conference, not forgetting the scientific program committee itself for putting the whole conference together through its meetings and individual work.
Jaime Delgado
Chair of Scientific Programme Committee
October 2021