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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.

Get Started

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

About Us

Contact, partners, the team behind the DSF and more... Join our community!

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

DSF Spring School 2026 - Registrations are now open!

Get ready for the third edition of the DSF Community Spring School 2026, happening February 24–26 at Heilbronn University! Dive into a immersive, hand-on experience and connect with the DSF Community. Sign up now, save the date, and be part of it!
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👉 Read more about the program, agenda, and registration here:
Spring School

DSF Community Hackathon 2026 Recap
On January 20, 2026 we hosted the DSF Community Hackathon, bringing together over 60 participants to support locations migrating to the new DSF 2.0.1 release. Through presentations, hands-on online support, and direct assistance with updating their DSF instances and process plugins. The event proved to be an overall success, with 35 instances running DSF 2.0.1 now.
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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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Feel free to contact us via dsf-gecko@hs-heilbronn.de and we will take care of your request as soon as possible.