The increasing interconnection of technology in healthcare between devices at the physical and cyber levels has transformed these infrastructures into large Health Care Information Infrastructures. Such HCIIs are considered critical and sensitive infrastructures due to their importance for people’s well-being and safety. On the other hand, the evolving digital interconnectivity has also changed the threat landscape, producing a wide range of security and privacy challenges and increasing the danger of potential cybersecurity attacks. The integrated nature introduces new potential entry points for cybersecurity risks. Thus, there is an urgent, pressing need for the Health operators to protect their HCIIs. Efficient situational awareness, incident handling and risk assessment is an important step to acquiring a thorough and common understanding of cyber-attack situations, and is necessary to timely reveal security events and data breaches occurring into HCIIs. Consequently, analysis of incident information is crucial in attempting to detect the presence of a threat, within HCIIs, that has already been detected in other interdependent systems within the same ecosystem. AI4HEALTHSEC proposes a state of the art solution that improves the detection and analysis of cyber-attacks and threats on HCIIs, and increases the knowledge on the current cyber security and privacy risks. Additionally, AI4HEALTHSEC builds risk awareness, within the digital Healthcare ecosystem and among the involved Health operators, to enhance their insight into their Healthcare ICT infrastructures and provides them with capability to react in case of security and privacy breaches. Last but not least AI4HEALTHSEC fosters the exchange of reliable and trusted incident-related information, among ICT systems and entities composing the HCIIs without revealing sensitive corporate details

Health work and peace work can be seen as two aspects of the same objective: Contributing to the wellbeing and prosperity of fellow citizens. Health professionals and their organisations often find themselves in a unique position to prevent or reduce violence and to promote peace. Since 2004, the European Medical Peace Work Partnership has developed training material on peace issues for health professionals. In 2011, seven Medical Peace Work (MPW) online courses were launched as a self-study option for health professionals. The courses, as well as a web-based resource centre for medical teachers and trainers, are available free of charge at www.medicalpeacework.org. By then, nearly 7.000 users had created an account at the online learning platform, and more than 730 certificates had been issued. The courses were accredited by the Norwegian Medical Association as standalone CME-credited courses (continuous medical education). They had also been applied in medical and health science education at various teaching institutions across Europe. Feedback, however, revealed that self-running online courses require a high level of self-discipline on the part of the students. Albeit a variety of online discussion solutions, individual online students had also reported a lack of peer contact, which they saw as important to their ability to complete the course and to their practical skills training. With MPW3, we wished to introduce Case-based learning (CBL) as a new teaching methodology. Our consortium of project partners planned to produce twelve new cases that will complement the existing MPW online courses. The new material would focus on skills training in teamwork and problem solving, to be used in face-to-face settings or in blended learning solutions when combined with the online courses. We also wanted it to be used outside educational institutions and even independently from skilled facilitators; our planned audio-visual case material and new team-focused online course would contain video guidance.The primary target group for MPW3 encompassed institutions of higher education and VET for health workers that provide teaching in MPW-related fields of study. Such fields include international health/global health, public health/social medicine, domestic violence prevention, crises prevention/intervention, trauma care, medical ethics & human rights, international humanitarian law, health diplomacy, communication, and conflict management. MPW3’s secondary target group comprised individual health workers and teams of health workers interested in improving their performance in peace building and violence prevention.Our ten partners constituted a combination of the expertise deemed necessary for this project. Organisations such as University of Bergen, IPPNW and Klinikum Nurnberg have extensive Medical Peace practice and education, and they have all formed part of the MPW consortium since 2004. We also brought in a special organisation with particular expertise in creating and managing case-based learning material – the UK-based Case Centre. Also contributing to this project are new training institutions and organisations with the type of field and situation practice that would feed into the case development and ensure realistic, high quality scenarios.Multiplier events during the project period included co-organisation of the congress ‘Medicine and Conscience’, where there would be a special thematic focus on challenging peace-health situations in Europe. A workshop to train health educators in CBL methodology and gain their feedback on our material would be organised further into the project period. Finally, a symposium gathering peace-health educators from Europe and around the world would be held towards the final stages of the MPW3 project period. Dissemination would additionally be ensured through various channels that included our extensive peer networks, lobbying activities, the publication of texts and articles in relevant media, public relations events, MPW information material distributed at conferences, meetings and institutions, as well as accreditation and assimilation of the new CBL material into more health education institutions across Europe.The fact that MPW3 focuses on case-based learning solutions is a symptom of the MPW network’s eagerness to design sustainable training solutions. CBL comes up as a learning method that caters for the learning capacities and needs of the next generation of students. With MPW3, we have been able to bridge the material already produced in MPW 1 and 2 with a methodological approach designed for the future.MPW as a field of expertise has gradually developed over the past twelve years. Our network of partners and supporters continues to grow, as does the demand for designated and freely accessible teaching material. As long as there are health workers interested in using their special role to build peace and prevent violence, MPW is needed.

In the digital era, Critical Infrastructures (CIs) are operating under the premise of robust and reliable ICT components, complex ICT infrastructures and emerging technologies and are transforming into Critical Information Infrastructures (CIIs) that can offer a high degree of flexibility, scalability, and efficiency in the communication and coordination of advanced services and processes. The increased usage of information technology in modern CIIs means that they are becoming more vulnerable to the activities of hackers and other perpetrators of cyber-related crime (cyber criminals). Several recent studies have shown that the landscape of cyber threats is changing continuously and the nature of attacks of this sort are evolving, involving a great degree of persistence and (technical) sophistication. In addition to this, barriers to entry for would-be cyber criminals are falling rapidly, and nowadays, the attackers have a range of (technical) capabilities and substantial resources at their disposal, since malware and malware-as-a service become more easily and cheaply available through various means and sources (such as Dark Web, Deep Web). Thus, a variety of advanced techniques and tools (e.g. social engineering techniques and zero-day exploits programs) are available and can be used by the cyber criminals to initiate advanced targeted attacks. These threats employ multiple technologies and malware, deployed in multiple stages, to bypass traditional security mechanisms in order to penetrate an organization’s defenses. The attack vectors vary significantly including Application-Layer, Social Engineering Unauthorized Access, Malicious Code, and Reconnaissance and Networking-based service attacks that target applications, host and client operating systems, and even networking equipment. In this vein, the attackers use these techniques to get valuable data assets, such as financial transaction information, user credentials, insider information etc.

This Pathfinder project will establish a radical change in the treatment of newborns using an artificial placenta (ArtPlac). What drives us towards a radical new treatment approach? 2 mio. neonatal deaths that occur worldwide yearly. The technological advancements of the last fifty years were based on scaling down adult devices which are not ideal for all babies. Why? Because babies are not just small adults! In fact, the applied treatments are very invasive and cause side effects by damaging their sensitive bodies. Survivors often suffer from life-long complications or cannot live independently. In utero, the placenta is a life-giving organ and serves as fetal lung, fetal kidney, and feeder. Because the placenta cannot be reconnected after preterm birth, we aim to continue the placental support with ArtPlac. Our novel device simply connects to the belly button for lung and kidney support while the newborn can breathe, mature, and heal. To achieve this, a novel compact and miniaturized all-in-one artificial placenta device combining lung and kidney functions will be developed. Our plug-in approach will use the natural umbilical vessels at the belly button with expandable catheters to provide a large bore vascular access like in utero. This allows ArtPlac to be driven solely by the newborn's heart like in the womb. Inline sensors will analyze blood parameters without painful collection. Feedback loops in ArtPlac will provide individual demand-driven support. Inbuilt features for hemocompatibility will prevent thrombosis and use of high-dose systemic anticoagulation with the high risk for brain bleeding. Importantly, ArtPlac allows family integrated care providing a therapy for the newborn in close connection to its family. In summary, our visionary approach revolutionizes the treatment of newborns after birth. It will reduce brain damage and comorbidities, promote long-term health, and therefore improve the survival chances of up to 1.2 mio. newborns per year.

HemoArtPlac complements to the ArtPlac project that proposes a radical breakthrough in the treatment of sick newborn infants by the development of a pumpless artificial placenta. The lifecycle of current devices is limited by congestion from blood clots or catheter-associated bloodstream infections. Standard systemic anticoagulation and antibiotic approaches have a high risk of, e.g., intraventricular bleeding and antimicrobial resistance. To mitigate these live-threatening risks, HemoArtPlac will develop multidimensional approach for surface modification of ArtPlac devices that reduces clotting-associated complications and bacterial contaminations, thus simplifying intensive care of critically ill newborns and improving their survival, as well as neurological outcome. The widening partner has extensive experience in surface modification and fabrication of biocompatible and biofunctional coatings and unique state of the art facility for development and modification of biomaterials. They will develop novel, customized multifunctional covalent functionalization, which mimics the anti-clotting properties of natural vessels and includes immobilization of antithrombin-heparin complex and incorporation of nitric oxide releasing component. Of note, the designed methodologies and coatings are applicable to a wide range of biomedical blood-contacting consumables and devices and thus, HemoArtPlac will have impact beyond the ArtPlac and the neonatology.