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Selecting medical research data platforms for translational biomedical research: a five-tier overview and requirement-weighted assessment framework

Jacobs M, Goudarzi S, Stücke J, Röhm R, Kanninen T, Oinonen T, Ritter P, Schirner M et al.

Frontiers in digital health, 2026

Abstract

Introduction: Translational biomedical research is increasingly collaborative and multimodal, making secure, high-quality data capture, curation, and analytics a major challenge. This work aims to provide an overview of existing medical research data platforms to support informed platform selection for translational biomedical research.

Methods: As part of an ongoing Fraunhofer Request for Proposal (RFP) process, we developed a requirements assessment tool for users across the Fraunhofer ecosystem. In parallel, we compiled a structured overview of medical research data platforms through an open collaboration between academic and industry experts, who supplemented our market screening by identifying additional relevant platforms. Using a standardized questionnaire on key aspects of distributed data collaboration, we collected harmonized platform descriptions and organized them into a side-by-side overview with an accompanying feature weighting matrix.

Results: The study yielded a structured, comparative characterization of medical research data platforms across five functional classes, highlighting common strengths in security, interoperability, data quality, and multimodal data support. We devised (developed) a platform feature-partner weight matrix that enables context-sensitive platform scoring without imposing a predefined global ranking. In this way, users can align platform scoring with their specific translational research requirements.

Discussion: This structured,…

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