The BabyLux project aims to provide a precise, accurate and robust integrated system to continuously monitoring cerebral oxygen metabolism and blood flow in critically ill newborn babies. Over the last two decades, the percentage of preterm births in the Western hemisphere rose by 20%. During early stages of brain development, injury from lack of blood flow and oxygen delivery may induce cognitive and physical handicaps. In fact, preterm births now account for a significant portion of children with cerebral palsy and cognitive, visual, and hearing impairments. A non-invasive, continuous, cot-side monitor of cerebral oxygen metabolism and blood flow is an unfilled niche in clinical care. The project takes up complete R&D works and extends already tested prototypes to the level of demonstrator, bridging the gap between research products and commercialization. The system uses photonic technologies (diffuse correlation spectroscopy, DCS, and time resolved near-infrared spectroscopy, TRS) to non-invasively and safely measure cerebral oxygen metabolism and blood flow. This innovative combination provides the state-of-the-art in accuracy and robustness in TRS, and introduces, for the first time, DCS in a combined instrument. The instrument will first undergo a demonstration phase in laboratory settings and later an operational phase in real-life settings, conducted in parallel in two public hospitals of two different countries. The advantages of the proposed system will be evaluated by professional end-users during validation tests carried out in conditions fitting in the clinical workflow, protocols and procedures. Dissemination and exploitation activities will promote accelerated acceptance and wider deployment of the proposed biophotonic solution. The BabyLux consortium gathers service content providers (physicists and engineers for biophotonic applications), professional end-users (neonatologists), and SMEs (photonic components producer, medical device manufacturer).