OSInfra

About the research topic

Medical imaging plays a central role in ophthalmology for disease diagnosis and monitoring. With the growing use of artificial intelligence (AI), the demand for sharing both data and algorithms has increased. While researchers are motivated to make their data and software FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable), technical barriers and legal complexities often hinder progress.

Health-RI provides a national infrastructure to support FAIR health data, including medical imaging. However, uptake within the ophthalmology community is lacking, largely due to the absence of tools that meet the community’s specific needs. To address this, the EyeNED Platform was developed at Erasmus MC to support the curation and annotation of ophthalmic images. Although it has gained traction within the field, EyeNED is not a complete solution and it is not yet integrated with the broader Health-RI infrastructure.

This project aims to bridge that gap by incorporating the EyeNED platform into the Health-RI ecosystem and extend it with tools tailored to the needs of ophthalmology researchers and clinicians. Beyond the technical challenges, we will establish a legal framework to support responsible data and software sharing. This initiative will create a National Infrastructure for Ophthalmic Imaging, advancing FAIR data practices and open science in the Netherlands and internationally.