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The XIA (Xpanding Innovative Alliance) project is a four-year, European Union-funded Erasmus+ initiative designed to help Europe prepare for the implementation of the European Health Data Space (EHDS).

While the EHDS establishes the legal and technical framework for sharing health data across Europe, XiA focuses on a critical enabling factor. It ensures that the healthcare workforce has the knowledge and skills needed to implement the EHDS successfully. XiA is therefore all about building Europe’s Health Data Workforce for the EHDS. 

The project has launched its Community of Practice.

More about the launch

An online meeting, held on 26 June 2026, marked the official launch of the project’s Community of Practice.

This collaborative network is bringing together stakeholders – such as healthcare professionals, educators, researchers, policymakers, industry, hospitals and public authorities – to support the development, validation and adoption of educational resources on health data interoperability.

The project seeks to prepare the workforce through practical, modular education supported by this broad Community of Practice rather than develop new technical standards.

What will the Community of Practice do

The Community of Practice has been created as a permanent collaboration mechanism that connects education, implementation and policy.

Rather than functioning only as a discussion forum, the ocmmunity will actively support XiA project activities by:

• Validating educational materials.
• Providing feedback from real-world users.
• Identifying national and professional needs.
• Supporting dissemination and adoption of learning resources.
• Contributing expertise from different healthcare sectors and countries.

Membership of the community is intentionally flexible. Participants may contribute to it as learners, educators, reviewers, national ambassadors, or subject-matter experts, depending on the project needs.

What are the skills gaps in interoperability in Europe

A central message throughout the community’s launch meeting was that interoperability is not only a technical challenge but is also an organisational and human one.

Given that there is a significant skills gap in interoperability across Europe, launch participants identified several recurring priorities or needs:

• Practical use case-based training rather than purely theoretical materials.
• Stronger collaboration between countries and professional groups.
• Localisation of educational resources for different national contexts.
• Greater engagement of clinicians who often struggle to see the immediate benefits of interoperability.
• Continuous dialogue with end-users to ensure that educational materials address real implementation challenges.

A recurring conclusion was that human factors and organisational change may represent an even greater challenge than the technology itself.

Which stakeholder perspectives were represented at the launch

Representatives from associated partner organisations present at the launch confirmed that some similar challenges exist throughout Europe.

The Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region (ASPHER) highlighted that digital health requires changes in education, leadership, and organisational culture, not only in technology. ASPHER accentuated that workforce capacity will ultimately determine whether the EHDS succeeds or not.

Representatives from the Medical Chamber of Slovenia described the difficulty of implementing digital health nationally due to limited expertise and resources. They considered XIA as an opportunity to accelerate national capacity building through international collaboration.

Researchers working on digital health and patient-generated health data emphasised that emerging standards require continuous cooperation between developers, healthcare professionals, and policymakers, thus making the XiA Community of Practice into an essential platform for sharing experience.

What are the planned project activities

In the last months of 2026, XiA’s focus will shift from curriculum design to content production, pilot testing, and stakeholder validation, at the same time as it expands the community across Europe. By combining education, implementation experience, and policy perspectives, XIA aims to create sustainable learning resources that will continue to support European health interoperability well beyond the lifetime of the project.

The Community of Practice launch meeting outlined several concrete actions that are already underway or are planned for the coming months. For more information on XiA’s open educational materials, see here. 

Here are some of the project’s current and next steps:

• Finalising the curriculum

The project is completing the design of its educational curriculum and organising learning materials into thematic “families” that cover regulatory, technical, and implementation topics.

• Producing educational content

Project partners are now creating the modular learning blocks that will later be assembled into customised learning pathways for different professional profiles.

• Testing educational materials

The learning resources will be piloted in real implementation settings to evaluate their usefulness and gather feedback before their wider deployment.

• Community validation

The Community of Practice will regularly review educational content, validate learning materials, and identify improvements based on practical implementation experience.

• Stakeholder engagement

The project will continue to expand its network beyond the current consortium of 47 partners. It will additionally engage with professional associations, hospitals, national authorities, industry, and educational institutions across Europe.

In September and October 2026, in Finland (Helsinki) and at the XiA Educathon in Italy (Pisa), the project will engage with the stakeholders cluster from different countries.

XiA encourages you to join its Community of Practice

XiA’s Community of Practice is open for you to join. XiA encourages application for membership of its Community of Practice here.