The Val-de-Grâce, upcoming international digital health “hub”? This is the ambition presented this Friday December 4, 2020 by French President Emmanuel Macron. Visiting the Necker hospital in Paris, as the second Covid-19 epidemic wave keeps on spreading across France, the head of State has detailed guidelines of “PariSanté Campus”, a place dedicated to research and innovation in the digital health sector.
In concrete words, what has been unveiled by President Macron? In the former premises of the Val-de-Grâce military hospital, set behind the Pantheon between Cochin hospital and the Ecole Normale Supérieure on rue d’Ulm, a campus called “PariSanté Campus” will bring together staff from AP-HP, Agence du Numérique en Santé (Digital Health Agency), the INSERM (French National Institute for Health and Medical Research), as well as INRIA (National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation), and the Health Data Hub.
As many research and specialized expertise centers in technologies applied to health which presence in an abandoned hospital is justified with a common agreement: becoming “in 5 years’ time” – as promised by the French President – the main hub in terms of digital health innovation and research.
As a matter of fact, Emmanuel Macron strives after “restoring our European strategic autonomy in this field of medical research, scientific research and digital innovation and health technologies”, as the President’s entourage tells AFP. To finance this project, a full €400 million budget has been planned, including 45 from a wide post-Covid recovery scheme created by the government, and 180 million from the research programming act.
