About us
IDIBAPS: Research for the future
Ramon Gomis Director of IDIBAPS
It gives me great pleasure to greet you from the August Pi i Sunyer Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBAPS) website. The research activities of the centre are divided into six different areas, which group over 60 top-level research teams. Scientific breakthroughs are never the result of chance. They are long-term commitments that involve not only researchers, but also society as a whole. IDIBAPS is a consortium that assumes one of these commitments in Catalonia: To encourage translational research, innovation and technological progress in the field of biomedicine, through different programmes addressing diseases with a high prevalence, morbidity and mortality. Its website reflects this activity.
On of the most recent achievements is the opening of the new Esther Koplowitz Centre (CEK) building – this having been possible thanks to the commitment of the public institutions, the investigators and the important financing entities such as the Esther Koplowitz Foundation. This improvement in our research facilities has been the result of the scientific and human growth experienced by the Institute in recent years. The new headquarters of the IDIBAPS will serve to catalyse continuity in more and better research year after year.
Another indicator of the good health of the IDIBAPS is the number of publications made by its investigators. In 2009, the IDIBAPS published a total of 840 original articles in international journals, with a global impact factor of 3,879.32. This means an average of 4.62 impact factor points per article – an important figure that adequately reflects the quality of our research. It will be a genuine challenge to maintain a growth rate such as that experienced this year, since we have published 104 more original papers than in 2008.
In the economical setting, funding of the IDIBAPS during 2009 totalled 18 million euros, 30% of which corresponded to contributions from the DIUiE of the Catalan Government. The resources executed by the investigators of the IDIBAPS during 2009 totalled 43 million euros, of which 61% corresponded to projects and aids established on a competitive basis (calls for research funding). These figures offer an idea of the magnitude of the task impulsed by the members of the IDIBAPS.
Implication in great projects
I also wish to underscore the growing implication of this Institute in major national and international projects. The participation of the IDIBAPS in the Networked Biomedical Research Centres (Centros de Investigación Biomédica en Red, CIBERs), promoted by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, is very notorious. In this context, we are leaders of the CIBER on liver and digestive diseases (CIBERehd), the CIBER on respiratory diseases (CIBERes) and the CIBER on diabetes and related metabolic disorders (CIBERdem). We continue to participate in and lead projects of the Cooperative Research Thematic Networks (Redes Temáticas de Investigación Cooperativa, RETICs), likewise promoted by the Ministry, and the number of projects financed by the European Commission in which we take part also continues to grow day by day. In the year 2009, the European Commission granted 40% of the projects applied for by the IDIBAPS, while the European average in this sense was in the order of 17%. This level of success is within the reach of very few institutions.
All considered, we have nothing but admiration for the professionals who allow the Institute to advance, allowing us to view the future with optimism. We have achieved many things, but we can most certainly achieve many more. We have human potential, institutional and economical support, and the desire to continue moving forward.
Ramon Gomis
Director of the IDIBAPS