Axis director: Dr. Isabel Fortier, McGill University.

This axis is based on the work of the last twenty-five years, carried out by the Maelstrom team led by Dr. Fortier. Maelstrom is an infrastructure for developing data harmonization protocols, procedures, and methods. The Perinatology Network represents a broad base of users and developers of Maelstrom resources, to ensure their usefulness and sustainability.

The link between the network and Maelstrom will 1) optimize the use of existing perinatal research data and broaden the prospects for collaboration by providing access to an international catalog of studies and variables; 2) Facilitate the management of collaborative research projects by providing access to free and open-source software and innovative methodological approaches to harmonize, integrate, document and analyze research data more easily, with more rigor and at a lower cost ; and 3) improve the quality of harmonized research databases, and therefore their potential to support complex data analyzes leading to the development of new knowledge.