The International Human Exposome Network (IHEN) is inviting researchers to share information on their existing datasets and help us test relevant exposome research tools. Access to harmonised largescale and good quality datasets is crucial to environmental health researchers. By participating, you will ensure that the exposome data and tools currently available meet their needs and help identify areas for improvement. If aligned with our project, you could choose to add your datasets to our inventory of global exposome cohorts.
Three pilot projects, led by project partners ISGlobal, the University of Oulu, and INSERM, will work with different types of datasets and test different aspects to ensure they meet FAIR data principles. Thereby, they will improve collaboration within the exposome research community.
- Project 1 focuses on the urban and social exposome and tests for data findability and interoperability
- Project 2 focuses on the biological exposome and assesses the predictability of biological exposome data
- Project 3 focuses on functional exposomics and adverse outcome pathways and involves testing two tools that will allow us to piece together a sequence of connected molecular, cellular, or tissue events that link one or more stressors from the exposome to a disease.
Why take part?
By participating, you can contribute to advancing exposome science and gain visibility within the IHEN community. You will get access to:
- Increased visibility – Your metadata/codebooks will be considered for inclusion in the European Health Research Data and Sample Catalogue. This catalogue gathers datasets from several research projects working in this field, encouraging reuse of data to improve public health.
- Research impact – Selected cohorts will contribute to high-impact research addressing critical exposome questions, including co-authorship on published meta-analyses or other publications resulting from this collaboration.
- Expertise and training on the exposome – We will organize a series of training sessions and workshops for participating researchers on exposome methods.
Participation does not mean that your data will become publicly available. This initiative will explore new ways of integrating and harmonising exposome data.
How do I join?
Complete an online form by 1 June answering key questions about your dataset to help us assess whether it aligns with our project. Please complete a separate survey for each different cohort/dataset.
Each responsible institution can make their own decisions about the levels of collaboration. Options include:
- Only share metadata (i.e. codebook with available data domains in the cohort)
- Grant data access for analysis (i.e. data transfer).
- Only run your analyses locally with your team (i.e. no data transfer) and participate in meta-analyses.
Next steps
Once you complete our online form, we will check your eligibility to take part. We will review the datasets and applicants and inform them by September 2025. We aim to start the pilot projects by November 2025. If you have any questions or need support with the form, please reach out to Lea Maitre, Assistant Research Professor at ISGlobal.
