July 27, 2026

Five researchers from the Bridge2AI Consortium have won First Prize in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Data Sharing Index (S-Index) Challenge. 

Image Courtesy of the National Institutes of Health

Led by Bhavesh Patel, PhD, Multiple-Principal Investigator for the AI-READI project, the team was awarded the $400,000 First Prize for their submission, “A Simple and Field-Aware S-Index for Promoting and Rewarding Data Sharing.” As part of the challenge, the team developed Scholar Data (scholardata.io), an open platform inspired by Google Scholar designed to automatically measure, track, and recognize the scientific impact of shared datasets across research disciplines.

Joining Dr. Patel on the winning team were AI-READI Contact Principal Investigator Aaron Lee, MD, MSCI, Principal Investigator Cecilia Lee, MD, MS, and Software Developers Sanjay Soundarajan and Aydan Gasimova.

The NIH S-Index Challenge invited scientific, software, and data communities across the country to design novel, scalable metrics to reward researchers who generate and share high-quality, reusable biomedical data.

While Phase 1 focused on Proof of Concept, Phase 2 was based on Refinement and Implementation. Submissions were evaluated based on criteria such as originality, technical feasibility, real-world impact, and clarity. Out of seven finalist teams competing at a live judging session at the NIH, the AI-READI team took home the competition’s highest award.

The AI-READI team is no stranger to driving advancements in data sharing. Under the Bridge2AI Consortium, they developed FAIRhub (fairhub.io), a novel platform designed to manage and share data for official releases of their “Flagship Dataset of Type 2 Diabetes from the AI-READI Project.” Scholar Data addresses the next critical step: providing an automated, field-aware metric to track dataset citations and reward researchers for open data sharing.

Image Courtesy of Bhavesh Patel

For Dr. Patel, the motivation behind Scholar Data stems directly from the everyday hurdles scientists face when trying to manage and curate complex research data.

“As a postdoc, I experienced firsthand the pain of managing, curating, and sharing data when all I really wanted was to focus on the science,” said Bhavesh Patel, PhD. “That experience shifted my focus toward developing automation tools that help researchers easily manage and share data, so they can spend their time on the science instead.”

By creating automated systems that measure dataset citations, FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) compliance, and field-specific impact, Scholar Data ensures that dataset creation is recognized as a primary scholarly contribution on par with traditional academic publishing.

As artificial intelligence continues to transform biomedical research, the reliability of machine learning models depends directly on the quality, openness, and accessibility of underlying datasets. The S-Index win underscores Bridge2AI’s central mission: setting the national standard for ethical, transparent, and AI-ready data infrastructure.

Yet for the team, winning the Challenge is just the beginning.

“Incentivizing data sharing is a problem that’s going to take a lot of people and a lot of effort to solve, so I see this less as a finish line and more as the start of a journey—one where the whole community is working toward the same goal,” added Dr. Patel.

Join us on October 20-21, 2026, at the Bridge2AI Fall 2026 All-Hands Meeting & Open House in Rockville, MD, to learn more about how our researchers are advancing data sharing, explore tools like Scholar Data, and see firsthand how AI-ready datasets are shaping the future of health research.

Register Now for the All-Hands Meeting & Open House