Federated analysis is an approach that enables scientists to collaborate on data analysis without requiring the data to be moved or centralized. This is especially important in the context of data protection regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which imposes strict rules on the sharing and processing of sensitive personal data, including genomic information. Traditional approaches often require pooling data in a single location, which raises security and privacy concerns. Federated analysis overcomes this challenge by allowing researchers to run analyses directly at the sites where the data is stored, ensuring compliance with privacy regulations while still generating valuable scientific insights.
The Fed-A-Crate project aims to test federated analysis solutions envisioned by major European life sciences initiatives, such as GDI and EUCAIM. We will implement and evaluate different frameworks for federated analysis across four ELIXIR nodes and enhance the reproducibility and documentation of federated training by updating RO-Crate to support this type of analysis.
The project is funded by the ELIXIR Human Data and Translational Research Commissioned Service Call of 2024 and started on January 1, 2025.
Our goal is to advance federated analysis solutions by comparing different approaches to identify the most effective methods for analyzing sensitive genomic data.
Who are we?
This project is a collaboration between different research institutions across four ELIXIR nodes:
- ELIXIR Belgium - Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie
- ELIXIR Spain - Barcelona Supercomputing Center
- ELIXIR France - Université de Bordeaux
- ELIXIR Portugal - BioData.pt
- ELIXIR United Kingdom - University of Manchester and University of Nottingham