Development of University-Industry Centre of Biomedical and Medical Informatics

Biomedical and Medical Informatics (BMI) belongs to the rapidly growing interdisciplinary field which aims at implementation of digital technologies in all aspects of healthcare. Due to rapid development and integration of information and communication technologies into all areas of human life, it is expected that demands for experts in this area will grow in the coming years. This fact should be reflected by higher education institutions to develop new interdisciplinary study programs that educate specialists that have knowledge of medical and biomedical terminology, understand the current issues of biomedical research and have a strong background in informatics and digital technologies. European universities have reflected this reality and have begun to offer study programs in the area of BMI. In Slovakia, this fact has been reflected by Faculty of Management Science and Informatics of University of Zilina, which opened a master study program on BMI in September 2019. To support this program and grasp the best practices of European universities offering BMI-related study programs, University of Zilina prepared and coordinate Erasmus+ project bringing together universities and industrial partners from nine countries of the European Union. The aim of the project is to create a university-industry centre in BMI with an online portal covering current challenges in BMI and containing teaching materials for courses related to BMI. The portal will be available for free to students of partner universities as well as other universities and practitioners interested in BMI and will support not only regular learning but also distance learning in BMI.