The European Society of Minimally Invasive Neurological Therapy (ESMINT) has announced its role as a clinical stakeholder in Smart Human-Centred Effortless Support for Professional Clinical Applications (SHERPA)—a major research initiative funded by the European Union’s (EU) Horizon Europe programme.
SHERPA is a multidisciplinary public-private collaboration that aims to develop advanced, artificial intelligence (AI)-driven assistive technologies for interventional radiology, with a focus on neurovascular procedures.
The SHERPA project brings together a diverse consortium of academic institutions, university hospitals and industry partners from across Europe. Its goal is to design and implement intelligent systems that support clinical decision-making and workflow in minimally invasive procedures, spanning from diagnosis and treatment planning to intraprocedural guidance, and postprocedural follow-up.
ESMINT states in a press release that its involvement ensures that the project remains clinically grounded and aligned with the real-world needs of neurointerventionists.
“By participating in SHERPA, ESMINT ensures that the voices and needs of neurointerventionists are directly reflected in the development of next-generation assistive technologies,” said ESMINT president Anne-Christine Januel (Toulouse University Hospital, Toulouse, France). “We are proud to contribute our clinical perspective to a project that has the potential to fundamentally improve how we plan, perform and evaluate neurovascular procedures.”
ESMINT is set to play a key role in driving the development, validation and dissemination of SHERPA innovations, contributing its extensive professional network, scientific expertise, and educational infrastructure.
“By integrating intelligent support systems into daily clinical workflows, SHERPA helps us make neurointerventions safer, more precise and, ultimately, better for patients,” commented Matthias Bechstein (University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany), appointed SHERPA representative for ESMINT.
To showcase ongoing tasks within the project, a dedicated SHERPA outreach session will be held at the upcoming ESMINT annual congress (3–5 September 2025, Marseille, France). The session—taking place on Friday 5 September from 08:30–09:30 Central European Summer Time (CEST)—will highlight clinical and technical advances in areas like aneurysm rupture/growth prediction, autocollimation and automated working projections, high-fidelity neurointerventional simulation, digital patient follow-up solutions, and automated aneurysm detection and device sizing.
