• Project Dates: January 2019 - December 2023
• Project Leader: Dr Morris Swertz (University Medical Center Groningen)
• Staff: Professor Madeleine Murtagh, Professor Paul Burton, Dr Mwenza Blell, Dr Joel Minion, Dr Mavis Machirori, Ms Steph Mulrine, Dr Olly Butters, Dr Becca Wilson, Dr Patricia Ryser-Welsch
• Sponsors: European Commission

EUCan-Connect (EUCAN) is a five year project to integrate for analysis health data held by multiple longitudinal studies located across the European Union and Canada. A key component will be DataSHIELD, a platform that allows data to be analysed remotely behind each cohorts’ firewall, returning only summary results. In this way, researchers never see individual level data.

The EUCAN-Connect Sustainability Ethnography (ENSUrE) study is empirical research that uses ethnographic methods to explore: (1) how EUCAN goes about delivering an open, federated data platform to deposit, curate and analyse data; and (2) how it delivers a sustainable framework for long-term collaboration that enables better data reuse and increased benefit to scientific communities and publics worldwide (i.e. that EUCAN is both collaborative and sustainable). The ENSUrE study will be conducted alongside EUCAN and is funded as part of the same project.