Enrique Santamaría Echeverría, Assistant Professor of Innovation of Public Law at Erasmus School of Law, has received a prestigious Veni grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO). Over the next three years, he will explore the legal framework for the collective governance of health data in his project “Collective Governance of Health Data: Towards More Democratic and Inclusive Models.”

Enrique Santamaría Echeverría is an affiliate researcher of the SEICA research group and member of the Legal Sounding Board of the ECCO project. His research comes at a time when debates over data privacy, ownership, and decision-making are intensifying. He aims to examine who holds the power to decide how health data is used—individuals, corporations, or governments—and under what conditions. By combining legal theory with interdisciplinary perspectives, Santamaría Echeverría will investigate emerging models such as health data cooperatives and collaboratives. Through empirical studies and community engagement, he hopes to better understand their needs, amplify the voices of citizens and patients, and develop policy recommendations that promote inclusive and democratic approaches to health data governance.