The goals of the 4th International HundredK+ Cohorts Summit are to galvanize the IHCC around a visionary, long-term strategic plan and a path forward (developed from the results of the November 2020 IHCC Workshop, interviews with a representative sample of IHCC members, industry partners and funders, and guidance from the IHCC Strategic Planning Advisory Group) that sets our direction to do the following:

• Continually build the cohorts community through promotion and partnerships with organizations (e.g., International Common Disease Alliance, the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health, industry partners) with a specific IHCC commitment to limited-resource settings/low- and middle-income countries (LRS/LMIC) representation on every committee and working group and address resource gaps that prohibit LRC/LMIC cohorts from fully engaging in the science.
• Expand the Cohorts Atlas to provide access to harmonized cohort-level metadata to enable federated data discovery and ultimately make available federated analysis interoperability for research and healthcare applications.
• Enhance the capabilities of all cohorts by leveraging the power of our membership to gain access to large-scale genome sequencing, introducing access to developing digital health technologies, adoption of standardized phenotyping (e.g., PhenX), and harmonization and analysis of environmental exposure data inclusive of climate change (e.g., the Canadian Urban Environmental Health Research Consortium, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences).
• Guide the IHCC Scientific Agenda to address population health targeted focus areas, such as infectious disease, cardiometabolic disease, mental/cognitive health, and global health crises such as COVID-19 and environmental/genomic risks.
• Expand the consortium’s ability to identify and address key policy issues that prohibit or restrict cross-organizational collaboration including data sharing, data access, health data privacy and issues prohibiting diversity, equity, and inclusion.
• Establish educational resources and infrastructure designed to develop capacity in cohort building and cross-cohort data science aimed at strengthening the cohorts’ “workforce for tomorrow” through establishment of a novel IHCC cohorts’ educational platform and providing a forum for exchange of scientific ideas, best practices, and lessons learned.