Glossary

What is Federated query?

Updated September 1, 2026

A federated query runs a research question across multiple institutions' data without moving any of the data. The query travels to where each record lives, and what returns is the answer with its provenance, never the records themselves. Clean Rooms handle the cross-institutional work so no participant sees another's raw data.

Because nothing moves, nothing has to be de-identified twice or explained to a second privacy office, and every record in a resulting cohort arrives with its provenance, its consent scope, and a replayable trust score, which is what an IRB, a journal, or a regulator actually asks for.

Researchers can set DTI floors, minimum trust tiers a record must clear to enter the cohort, so the network's answers are only as inclusive as each question can defend.