The HealthGrid cluster gathers grid-related projects with the following goals:

• acquire and share experience in deploying biomedical applications using the existing middlewares
• promote the grid concept in the biomedical community
• identify the specific biomedical requirements on the middleware technology and make them known to the GridStart cluster

The HealthGrid cluster is the embryo of a proposal for a health grid in the 6th framework programme. A grid for health is a collaboration of companies and laboratories agreeing to deploy biomedical services on a grid made of mutualised storage and computing resources.

The services can be open source or proprietary. Computing and storage are also free or can be charged. The middleware infrastructure is shared by the participating entities. The health grid works as a backbone where biomedical projects can be deployed and benefit of the services and resources made available on the grid.

HealthGrid will present contributions in parallel and distributed biomedical computations on the cluster or grid environments, knowledge grids and access to federated databases. Lectures will also be held on platforms other than the grid but presenting future relevance to the grids.

Areas include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Bio-informatics
• Biomedical informatics
• Medical Informatics
• Medical Imaging
• Use of health networks to deliver grid applications

HealthGrid also organises a session titled "Future of the HealthGrid", in which ideas will be presented for future collaborations in this domain such as networks of excellence, integrated projects, or other activity.

More information is available at http://lyon2003.healthgrid.org/.