About

Science4Pandemics (S4P) is a three-year European project funded by EIT Health that aims to develop a digital platform to educate the public on the prevention and management of pandemics. Targeting the adolescent population in particular, we will use gamification and artificial intelligence (AI) for enhancing the public’s understanding of this field.

Digital gamification helps citizens to learn efficiently, while at the same time enabling them to become active providers of data on a voluntary basis. The digital platform will use AI algorithms to collect data that will allow researchers to learn from ordinary citizens (e.g. about symptomatology, horizontal and vertical disease spread, strains and behaviors) helping to improve research, preparedness and management of future pandemics.

The S4P consortium brings together experts with broad experience and knowledge that will allow accomplishing the activities and objectives defined for the project. It includes experts in gamification and scientific experts, with knowledge about pandemics, who will work together in the educational content of the platform and in citizen engagement. Data scientist and IT developers will work on the design of the digital solution and the case studies. Among others, business experts will also be part of the S4P consortium and will support the design of the scalability and sustainability of the S4P programme.

Through the S4P platform, we aim to empower society through an educational initiative that will also provide real-world data for collaborative research on pandemics.

Partners

Science4Pandemics is a multidisciplinary consortium funded by EIT Health and coordinated by the Fundació Sant Joan de Déu (FSJD) that comprises various institutions from Spain, Portugal and Italy, including the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), the University of Barcelona (UB), the University of Coimbra (UC), the Borja Institute of Bioethics (IBB), the Pedro Nunes Institute (IPN), the paediatric research network Penta, the company Exheus and the pharmaceutical manufacturers Sanofi and GSK.

University of Coimbra

The University of Coimbra (UC) is a public research university in Portugal. First established in Lisbon in 1290, it went through a number of relocations until moving permanently to Coimbra in 1537. The university is among the oldest universities in continuous operation in the world, the oldest in Portugal, and played an influential role in the development of higher education in the Portuguese-speaking world. In 2013, UNESCO declared the university a World Heritage Site. The UC is organized into eight faculties. The Department of Informatics Engineering of the Sciences and Technology Faculty will be involved in the S4P project.

Role: Design and development of the digital platform.

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Sant Joan de Déu Research Institute

The Institut de Recerca Sant Joan de Déu (IRSJD) is a biomedical research center made up from SJD Barcelona Children's Hospital and Parc Sanitari Sant Joan de Déu groups, and three research institutes, Institute of Biomedicine (IBUB) and the Institute of Neurosciences (UBneuro), both of them from the Universitat de Barcelona, and the Biomedical Engineering Research Centre (CREB) of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. All of theses centres are points of reference in the different phases of research and development of biomarkers, treatment and drugs.

Role: Project coordinator

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