Bilbao 2026: From European Health Data Policy to Real-World Implementation

Health Data Forum Global Hybrid Summit brings international leaders to the Basque Country on 24–25 September 2026

The Road to Bilbao is entering its final stretch.

On 24 and 25 September 2026, the Health Data Forum community will gather in Bilbao for the Health Data Forum Global Hybrid Summit 2026, bringing together international leaders from health systems, European institutions, research, academia and industry around one increasingly urgent question:

How do we make the European Health Data Space work in the real world?

Under the theme "Making European Health Data Spaces Real", Bilbao 2026 moves the conversation beyond regulation and policy design towards the practical conditions required for implementation.

The programme will explore some of the most demanding areas for the future of European health data: trusted secondary use, genomics, medical imaging, interoperability, cybersecurity, data quality and institutional capacity to evaluate and scale innovation.

Why Bilbao?

The Basque Country provides an especially relevant setting for this conversation.

This is not simply a debate about what Europe intends to build. It is an opportunity to examine what implementation looks like within a health ecosystem already working across digital health, data infrastructures, genomics and innovation.

Initiatives such as OSAGEN illustrate the move towards increasingly integrated genomic and health-data ecosystems and provide a practical anchor for discussing how regions can prepare for the European Health Data Space.

Bilbao therefore offers something particularly valuable: a place where European policy can meet real-world implementation.

From pilots to practice

Across Europe, there is no shortage of promising digital health pilots.

The more difficult challenge is what comes next.

How do health systems evaluate them? How do they establish trust? How do successful experiments become part of routine healthcare? And how do we build the governance, infrastructure and institutional capacity required to scale them safely?

This transition — from pilots to practice — will be one of the central conversations in Bilbao.

International participants will include representatives and experts connected with the European Commission, OECD, Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra, Health Data Hub France, i~HD, EUPHA, NICE, the Basque Government, Malta's Ministry of Health and Health Data Research Network Canada, alongside implementation partners and technology organisations.

Real Data, Better AI

Bilbao 2026 also marks an important stage in the evolution of the international Real Data, Better AI movement.

The message is deliberately simple.

Before health systems attempt to scale artificial intelligence, they need the foundations that make trustworthy AI possible: reliable data, interoperability, evidence, governance, security and public trust.

The question is therefore not whether AI will transform healthcare.

It is whether we are building the data environments and institutional conditions that allow that transformation to be responsible, equitable and sustainable.

That is the conversation we are bringing to Bilbao.

Media Resources

Journalists, editors and media professionals covering digital health, health data, artificial intelligence, genomics, European health policy and the Basque health ecosystem can access the official press release in the two local languages below.

Spanish — Nota de Prensa
Download the Spanish press release

Euskera — Prentsa Oharra
Download the Euskera press release

For interviews, speaker enquiries, background information or media accreditation:

Paul Nunesdea, PhD CPF / Paulo Nunes de Abreu
Founder & Firestarter
Health Data Forum
p.nunesdea@healthdataforum.org

Join us in Bilbao

Health Data Forum Global Hybrid Summit 2026
24–25 September 2026
Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain

Making European Health Data Spaces Real
Scaling Genomics & Imaging for Trusted Secondary Use

Discover Bilbao 2026 | Meet the speakers | Meet our Sponsors

The Road to Bilbao is becoming the road from policy to implementation.