Dataspace4Health: a Gaia-X Lighthouse project moving from reference architecture to working components

Seyed Ziaeddin Alborzi, PhD, Senior Data & AI Go to Market at NTT DATA Dataspace4Health is a Luxembourg-based Gaia-X Lighthouse project for health, moving from reference architecture to concrete, testable open-source components for trusted health data sharing. It provides technical rails for governed, sovereign and traceable data exchange, designed to support EHDS-aligned secondary use under the appropriate governance authorities, not to centralise data or replace existing health-governance authorities. The project connects healthcare and research actors around a federated model: data holders keep control, data users discover and request datasets through common mechanisms, and exchange is framed by identity, metadata, policy, contract and traceability capabilities. A key milestone has been the demonstrated end-to-end Eclipse Dataspace Connector flow between HRS (Hôpitaux Robert Schuman) as data holder and LIH (Luxembourg Institute of Health) as data user, using Federator-based catalogue capabilities, policy and contract definition, negotiation, and data transfer through the participant dashboard. A Metadata Capture component supports HealthDCAT-AP-based dataset descriptions, while a synchronisation service updates EDC assets from published metadata, linking rich health metadata to exchange and reducing manual work for data holders. Next steps focus on hardening the operational chain: EDC-to-SPE integration, open catalogue usability, transaction logging and audit capabilities, data quality and readiness evidence, and stronger alignment with EHDS secondaryuse workflows.