The Health University of Barcelona Campus promotes the creation of an innovation community in health

Representatives of the entities that are part of the HUBc, in which institutions, research centres and hospitals can be found, attended the event, which was chaired by Dídac Ramírez, rector of the UB. The delegate of the rector for the HUBc, Josep Samitier, and the technical director of the HUBc, Ernest Trias, also took part in it.

 

Until today the HUBc has granted funding worth 14,860,842 Euros to 23 projects through subventions and credits coming from the programs CEI 2010, INNOCAMPUS 2010 and Enfortiment 2011 given by the Ministries of Education, Culture and Sport, and Economy and Competitiveness.

Of all the subsidized projects, the UB manages slightly more of 50% of the budget and the rest is managed through several entities attached to the HUBc that lead some of the approved projects. Among the entities that lead projects the Food and Nutrition Torribera Campus; BiopolʼH, a biomedical and biotechnology cluster; the BioRegion of Catalonia (Biocat); the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC); the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute  (IDIBELL), the Hospital Clínic of Barcelona, and the University Hospital of Bellvitge can be found.

 

Among the projects that are being carried out it is necessary to highlight the construction of the classroom complex of Bellvitge Campus, a five-story building aimed to accommodate classrooms, laboratories and other educational and service areas which is expected to be finished in January 2013. The organization of an international congress on public health and healthy ageing has also been approved, which is headed by the professor of the Department of Medicine, Alfons López Soto, and which will take place in Barcelona at the end of 2013. On the other hand, the project for the development of a vocational training centre has also begun, an initiative resulting from the ministerial policies of creating integrated environments of vocational training at the CEI and in which BiopolʼH and the City Council of lʼHospitalet take part.

 

In its first year and a half, the HUBc has shaped the centre of the campus and has defined its functioning, as well as the government system. Special emphasis has been placed on communication, resulting in a new webpage and a Twitter and Facebook profile creation.

 

It is foreseen that in 2014, as part of the European program Horizon 2020, a new European call for proposals will take place to create new knowledge and innovation communities (KICs) in which the subject of health is included. In this sense, on initiative of the Biocat, the HUBc has approved a document that will be the starting point to prepare a candidature and to develop the Health Catalonia Region Innovation KIC: Barcelona InnoHealth proposal, which would group, in a more efficient way, the projects that are currently in course, and at the same time Catalonia could be located on the international map of EIT, in the health area.

 

KICs are on-line associations, in which universities, research centres, companies and regional or local agencies take part in order to deal at European level with problems that affect society, that develop initiatives to achieve a better prosperity based on knowledge. Regarding the management of their task, KICs combine education with entrepreneurship, research with innovation, and private sector with public sector, in order to establish alliances and common projects in an area that affects citizenship and that enables to improve the social and economic welfare in the European countries. It is foreseen that in 2020 KIC will have a budget of 350 M€.

 

In the assembly the corresponding indicators for the period 2008-2010 were also presented. Regarding the research, in this period about 1,000 articles have been published in indexed magazines and the impact factor has increased from 3.42 in 2008 to 4.83 in 2010. Other indicators refer to the researchers, who have increased in 1,226 persons, mainly as a consequence of more predoctoral research fellows. From an economic point of view, the revenues from projects funded in national and international calls for proposals have increased in more than 8 M€.

 

The number of alliances and collaborative research in the HUBc has also grown 74%, due mainly to the participation in CIBER projects. In the health care setting, the number of operations and of ambulatory surgery has increased in more than 100,000 cases. Regarding the private sector, in 2010 nine spin-offs have been created, three more than in 2008. And, even though the number of national patents has decreased, almost the double of the international patents have been registered.

 

At present, 26 entities are part of the HUBc, in which institutions, research centres, companies and city councils can be found. Moreover, other institutions have shown their intention of joining the HUBc project, such as the City Council of Sant Boi de Llobregat.

 

The entities that are currently involved with the HUBc, apart from the UB, which is the coordinator entity, are the Consorci de la Zona Franca de Barcelona, Biocat, BiopolʼH, August Pi i Sunyer Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBAPS), IDIBELL, Barcelona Centre for International Health Research (CRESIB), the Institute of Biomedical Research of Barcelonal (IIBB-CSIC), the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO), the University Hospital of Bellvitge, the Hospital Clínic of Barcelona, the Hospital Duran i Reynals, the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO), the Insitut de Diagnosi per la Imatge (IDI), the Hospital Universitari Mútua de Terrassa, the Hospital of Sant Joan de Déu and its mental health services, the association CataloniaBio, the Spanish Federation of Healthcare Technology Companies (Fenin), Ferrer International, the Associació Empresarial de lʼHospitalet i el Baix Llobregat (AEBALL), the Fòrum Empresarial del Llobregat and the technological centre Leitat. It also has the support of the Department of Health of the Generalitat de Catalunya and the citiy councils of Barcelona and of l'Hospitalet de Llobregat.