Maastricht / Heerlen, October 2026. A Catalonia.health delegation has taken part in the fourth study visit of the European project RISEMED4EU (Regional Innovation for Smart Ecosystems in Health and Medicine in the EU), held in Maastricht and Heerlen, in the Province of Limburg (Netherlands).

Attending were Laura Iglesias, General Director of Catalonia.health, Roser Alba, Project Coordinator, and, representing Catalonia's project stakeholders, Marina Ramiro from the Fundació TIC Salut i Social and Uxío Meis from the Agency for Health Quality and Assessment of Catalonia (AQuAS).

Day 1: The Brightlands ecosystem and medical device innovation
The first day focused on the Brightlands model, a triple-helix collaboration initiative between companies, universities and the Province of Limburg government. The model is built around four interconnected thematic campuses: Maastricht Health Campus (regenerative medicine, diagnostics and biomaterials), Chemelot Campus (sustainable chemistry and biomedical innovations), Data & AI Campus in Heerlen, and Campus Greenport in Venlo (food and bioeconomy). Research generated at one campus feeds into the others, creating an integrated ecosystem.

One of the most notable presentations was the Personal Health Train, by Professor André Dekker of Maastricht University: a data architecture model that enables large-scale collaboration across many hospitals without any sensitive data ever leaving its institution of origin. Rather than centralising information, the algorithm travels to each hospital, processes data locally and returns only the results — an approach that complies with GDPR by design and opens the door to large-scale collaborative research.

In the afternoon, a visit to Medtronic's Bakken Research Center offered insight into the evolution of medical devices and the growing role of AI, as well as the company's strategic shift towards collaboration with startups and SMEs. The day also featured a presentation by i-Med Technology of their glasses that record surgery in 3D: the surgeon no longer needs to bend their neck, and anyone watching remotely sees the surgical field as if they were there, with immediate applications in training and remote assistance.

The day closed at the Government of the Province of Limburg, where the delegation viewed a copy of the Maastricht Treaty, followed by a good practices workshop with all project partners. Catalonia presented CRAASH Barcelona, Biocat's acceleration programme that helps Catalan research teams and startups launch innovations in medical devices, diagnostics and digital health, with mentorship from CIMIT (Boston).

Day 2: AI and health, in depth

The second day took place at the Brightlands Data & AI Campus in Heerlen, with workshops on concrete AI applications in healthcare: Alzheimer's prevention with the MyBrainCoach app, a Netflix-style platform for personalised rehabilitation apps (Blended Clinic), and regional data availability. Zuyderland Hospital closed the day with its strategic vision for 2040, focused on how AI can help address the future shortage of healthcare professionals as the population ages.

Strengthening European health innovation ecosystems

RISEMED4EU is an Interreg Europe project bringing together policy authorities, government bodies, industry leaders and knowledge institutions from eight European regions with the goal of strengthening innovation ecosystems in diagnostics and personalised medicine. Catalonia.health's participation in this network helps showcase the Catalan ecosystem to European partners and brings back concrete references for its own development.

Further conclusions from the visit will be shared soon.