FUNDACION INVESTIGATION HM HOSPITALES

Their core work

The Research Foundation of HM Hospitales — a private Spanish hospital network — conducts clinical and translational research using access to real hospital patient populations. They have hosted Marie Skłodowska-Curie research fellows working on neurodegeneration, and contributed clinical data infrastructure to large international COVID-19 evidence consortia. Their value lies in bridging private hospital practice with EU-funded academic research: they can supply real patient cohorts, clinical datasets, and hospital-side operational expertise. Within the EU research ecosystem they function as a clinical anchor, grounding scientific questions in real-world medical settings.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

From 2016 to 2018, the foundation's EU-visible work centred on fundamental neuroscience — specifically the mechanisms behind selective neuronal degeneration in Parkinson's disease, hosted under an MSCA fellowship. By 2020, their focus had shifted entirely toward clinical data infrastructure: real-world data harmonisation, COVID-19 patient cohort standardisation, and rapid evidence generation at scale. This shift from disease-mechanism research to clinical data science reflects a broader institutional pivot, likely driven by their hospital network's growing data assets and the pandemic's demand for structured clinical evidence.

They are moving toward real-world evidence generation and clinical data standardisation, a direction well aligned with European Health Data Space initiatives and ongoing demand for hospital-sourced observational datasets.

How they like to work

They have played both roles: project coordinator (ROSNPD, MSCA hosting) and consortium participant (unCoVer, a large multi-country COVID-19 network). The 29 unique partners across 18 countries — from just two projects — points strongly to unCoVer being a large, distributed consortium, where the foundation served as one of many clinical data nodes rather than a driving hub. This suggests they are comfortable integrating into large international teams without leading them, contributing clinical access and data rather than coordination overhead.

Despite only two projects, their consortium footprint is unusually wide: 29 partners in 18 countries, almost certainly driven by participation in unCoVer's pan-European COVID-19 data network. There is no evidence of a recurring tight-knit partner group — their network appears broad and project-driven rather than relationship-based.

What sets them apart

Very few private hospital foundations in Spain appear in the H2020 CORDIS database as both MSCA hosts and large-consortium clinical partners — this organisation occupies a specific niche where private healthcare infrastructure meets EU open science. Their HM Hospitales parent network provides access to real clinical populations across multiple hospital sites, which is a resource most academic research institutes cannot offer. For consortium builders needing a Spanish clinical data site with prior EU project experience, they are a compact but credible option.

Highlights from their portfolio

• ROSNPD
  Coordinated project and MSCA Individual Fellowship host, demonstrating recognised institutional capacity to mentor researchers in Parkinson's disease neuroscience — rare for a hospital foundation rather than a university.
• unCoVer
  Participation in a large pan-European COVID-19 real-world data consortium (29 partners, 18 countries) that positioned the foundation as a clinical data contributor at EU scale during the pandemic.