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Data Sharing Framework

A performant, secure, and innovative framework that enables biomedical researchers to extract value from routine data.

Introduction

Introduction to the DSF and informations about Use-Cases/Projects.

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Get technical insights and install the DSF | Develop Process Plugins.

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GitHub

Take a look at the open-source reference implementation.

Data Sharing Framework

The Data Sharing Framework (DSF) is a concept for a secure middleware to distribute data sharing processes based on the BPMN 2.0 and FHIR R4 standards. The DSF is used to support biomedical research with routine data, aiming to extract, merge, pseudonymize and provide data stored in multiple distributed organizations. Every participating site runs a FHIR endpoint accessible by other sites and a business process engine in the local secured network. The process engines execute BPMN processes in order to coordinate local and remote steps necessary to enable cross-site data sharing or feasibility analysis. This includes access to local data repositories, use-and-access-committee decision support, consent filtering, and privacy preserving record-linkage and pseudonymization. The aim is to enable secure and syntactically-, semantically- and process-interoperable data exchange across organizational boundaries. The secure communication infrastructure is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space within the Medical Informatics structure as DSF Community.

DSF concept
DSF concept

News

Save The Date - DSF Community Events 2026

The DSF Community invites you to two events in the first quarter of 2026:

  • 1. DSF Hackathon (online) – January 20, 2026, 10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m.
  • 2. DSF Spring School – February 24–26, 2026 at Heilbronn University
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🚀 DSF 2 Released!
We are thrilled to announce that Version 2 of the Data Sharing Framework is finally available and ready for deployment on the test infrastructure! Additionally, new versions of several process plugins are released to be compatible with DSF 2. For more Details see the v2.0.0 and v2.0.1 release notes.
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Recap: DSF Community Meeting 2025 in Heidelberg
The DSF Community meet-up in Heidelberg brought together developers and contributoers to share ideas and discuss the latest progress in the DSF Community project. Highlights included updates on DSF 2.0, API 2.0, and a sneak peek at the new Linter Tool. The event wrapped up with a look ahead to 2026.
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DSF at the Operaton Release Party!
On Friday, November 21st, 2025, Hauke Hund and Maximilian Kurscheidt from the Data Sharing Framework (DSF) team attended the Operaton Release Party at the itemis headquarters in Dortmund to celebrate the upcoming release of Operaton 1.0.
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Feel free to contact us via dsf-gecko@hs-heilbronn.de and we will take care of your request as soon as possible.