Alumni Project Week Successful Cooperation Project on Global Digital Health and the Use of AI

Research alumni event facilitates knowledge transfer and initiates new scientific projects

AI applications for diagnostics and prevention, e-learning in medical education in Africa, apps for skin cancer screening: an innovative project week for research alumni, which took place in Heidelberg and Cologne in November, focused on digital global health and the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine. The interdisciplinary and international cooperation project, in which five other German research institutions participated alongside Heidelberg University, brought together 25 research alumni from various disciplines in developing, emerging, and industrialized countries with current scientists from the six partner institutions. The aim of this novel concept was to enable sustainable knowledge transfer and to strengthen international and interdisciplinary cooperation as well as the connections between research alumni and German research institutions. 

An idea that has been a complete success, as Jella Friedrich, who oversees the Research Alumni Network (RAN) at Heidelberg University at HAI, emphasizes: “The event, whose format, organization, and technical composition was new territory for everyone, exceeded the expectations of the participants and the project team. During the project week, research alumni and local scientists developed approaches for new joint projects, the outcomes of which will be presented in 2026 at a digital follow-up.” This successfully built bridges between research alumni and current researchers at the participating institutions, leading to new collaborations. In addition to Heidelberg University, the project partners include the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), and the universities of Cologne, Münster, and Siegen. The participating research alumni had all spent at least three months conducting research at one of the six institutions during their academic careers. 

The project week “Global Digital Health – Interdisciplinary Challenges from International Perspectives” began on November 20 in Cologne and continued from November 24 to 26 at the DKFZ in Heidelberg. In various formats, participants addressed the social, developmental, and global relevance of digital advances in various medical fields and the challenges and opportunities from a global perspective. Topics included disease prevention, diagnostics, medical care and therapy, biomedical informatics, aging research, climate change, health policy and education, as well as ethical and legal issues. The program consisted of keynote speeches and various types of panel discussions, supplemented by lab tours, networking opportunities, cultural activities, and three public lectures. In Heidelberg, a lab tour was offered on the Im Neuenheimer Feld campus, which included a visit to the Heidelberg Ion Beam Therapy Center at the University Medical Center. In the two public lectures in Heidelberg, alumnus Merlin Greuel discussed the effect of short animated storytelling videos on the health knowledge and behavior of various target groups, and Prof. Dr. Dr. Eva Winkler addressed ethical questions and problems in medical research and application, including with regard to AI—both lectures generated many interested questions.

Moroccan Heidelberg alumna Lamees Elhassan was particularly interested in discussions on inequality in healthcare and how digital health can bridge this gap. Such topics are just as important for participants from African countries as the general connections between politics and digital health: “This enables us to develop ideas and research approaches in our countries.” In addition to expanding her knowledge, she used the project week for networking, as she was looking for experienced scientists in the field of digital health as part of her doctoral studies and was also interested in collaborating on a related project. Felipe Mejia-Medina, a Heidelberg alumnus from Colombia, has been working in the field of digital health since 2011 and is now a consultant specializing in AI: “This project week was just perfect for me,” he said happily. He regularly participates in workshops because he knows how important it is not only to network, but also to get an outside perspective on his own work, which highlights aspects that he himself no longer notices. His work requires interdisciplinary teams, and “this project week is exactly where you find such an interdisciplinary team of amazing people who achieve incredible things.”

In 2026, the project partners intend to continue the discussions with digital events in order to promote sustainable collaborations that arose from the project week. The success of the workshop also strengthens HAI's Research Alumni Network, which most recently hosted an international event in 2018, as Jella Friedrich explains: “So we are looking forward to the anniversary year with new impetus for RAN and are excited about ‘30 years of HAI’.”