IRIS-CC was launched to promote health research in central Catalonia, with the UVic-UCC as a unifying institution

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  • The UVic-UCC has been key to IRIS-CC being launched with a sufficient base of biomedical research
  • IRIS-CC is designed to increase the potential of cooperation between teaching, care and research activity in central Catalonia

The Institute for Research and Innovation in Life Sciences and Health in Central Catalonia (IRIS-CC) formally began its activity on 1 June 2022. There were two long years behind the gestation of an initiative that, from the very beginning, bore the stamp of the University of Vic – Central University of Catalonia (UVic-UCC). A long journey lies ahead that should lead IRIS-CC to become a leading centre in research and innovation on local and international scale, due to the quality of its scientific output and its comprehensive approach to health and its challenges. The institute’s conceptualisation phase has been completed. The process that is currently underway is to make operational the institute and the foundation that gives it legal cover. At the moment, IRIS-CC is managing project requests and signing contracts with the pharmaceutical industry to develop clinical trials and inter-institutional scientific collaboration agreements.

The conception of IRIS-CC goes back to 2019, when UVic-UCC became a catalyst for the concern of institutions in its geographical area of influence about the need to promote and strengthen research in life sciences and health based on inter-institutional collaboration. In fact, it did not emerge from scratch, but brought together the work completed a few years earlier by Marina Geli and Marta Otero to advance the transformation of the UVic-UCC Health and Social Studies Centre into a research institute. In 2020, a first alliance was formed, with the involvement of six entities from Bages and Osona: the Balmes University Foundation, the Bages University Foundation, the Foundation for Advanced Studies in Health Sciences (all three in the federative framework of the University of Vic - Central University of Catalonia), the Althaia Foundation, the Catalan Health Institute and the Vic Hospital Consortium.

The UVic-UCC was the catalyst for the concern of institutions in the territory about the need to promote and strengthen research in life sciences and health

In the process, other institutions joined the project until a total of fourteen founding institutions was reached. They are the Elisava Private Foundation, University School (within the federative framework of the UVic-UCC), the Santa Creu de Vic Hospital Foundation, Sant Andreu Salut Private Foundation, the Hospital d'Olot i Comarcal de la Garrotxa Foundation, the Private Psychopedagogical Medical Centre of Osona, the Private Hospital Foundation of Campdevànol, the Hospital Sant Joan de Déu de Martorell Foundation and the Vic Primary Care Team, SLP (EBA Vic Sud).

In 2022, the Generalitat de Catalunya authorised the creation of the private foundation Research and Innovation Institute in Life and Health Sciences in Central Catalonia. Since 4 July of the same year, the institute has been fully operational and has begun to manage project requests, clinical trial contracts and agreements. Jerónimo Navas, director of the IRIS-CC, believes that "2023 must be the year to implement all the executive, operational and administrative functions of the institute."

The UVic-UCC, key to the present and future of IRIS-CC

The involvement of the UVic-UCC has been key not only in the phase of conceptualising the new institute, but also in ensuring that it emerged with a sufficient base of biomedical research. This is an essential condition for some of the IRIS-CC’s medium-term objectives, such as being able to join the network of Research Centers of Catalonia (CERCA) and obtain accreditation from the Carlos III Health Institute. Beyond the expertise and track record of researchers in the research groups, the UVic-UCC has made available to the IRIS-CC its current biomedical research laboratories and the training framework for new researchers, such as the doctoral programmes.

Marta Otero, coordinator of the UVic-UCC Tissue Repair and Regeneration Laboratory (TR2Lab) research group and coordinator of the IRIS-CC Tissue Regeneration and Transformation Area, explains that the UVic-UCC contributes to the institute a number of researchers and twelve research groups recognised by the Government of Catalonia, which already "work on research projects with competitive funding and have an outstanding level of scientific publications. It is a very important contribution, as it gives IRIS-CC critical mass to access new resources for research. For its part, IRIS-CC will have to increase the amount of time university researchers dedicate to research, by reducing the time they currently allocate to teaching and management, facilitating research support structures, and providing them with more advanced scientific facilities."

Although research relationships between UVic-UCC researchers and the staff of the other institutions that are part of the IRIS-CC existed before the foundation of the Institute, the creation of IRIS-CC is expected to consolidate and increase these links. Otero considers it a great opportunity "to make some of the scientific infrastructures of the healthcare centres more accessible to UVic-UCC researchers or to create new ones, such as the future BioBanc."

"It is a great opportunity to make some of the scientific infrastructures of healthcare centres more accessible to UVic-UCC researchers or to create new ones"

IRIS-CC must also facilitate the promotion of joint biomedical research projects. "It is not easy to work from the university to develop translational research projects with multidisciplinary teams, which involve the participation of patients," admitted Otero, "and the Institute offers us a framework for cooperation with care centres to advance this type of research and that may have a population impact on the territorial ecosystem of the IRIS-CC."

At the moment, over 300 researchers, who are part of fourteen research groups accredited by the Agency for the Management of University and Research Grants (AGAUR), have already joined the Institute. Navas recalled that "the ultimate purpose of the IRIS-CC is to promote research and innovation activities. To achieve this milestone, we are promoting the territorial and scientific deployment of the Institute, through territorial and scientific coordination, a selective and competitive process that has already been completed. Territorial coordination will initially focus on Bages-Manresa and Osona-Vic. The scientific coordination will be responsible for the priority research areas." These are research areas identified from a survey among researchers from the founding institutions. They include: Regeneration and Tissue Transformation; Bioinformatics and Bioimaging; Clinical Research; Epidemiology and Public Health; Aging, Frailty and Chronicity; Treatments; Innovation and Transversal Programmes.

Accreditation and new sources of funding, challenges of IRIS-CC

One of the challenges currently facing the IRIS-CC is its accreditation. This is a well-defined process in Catalonia (within the framework of the CERCA Programme) and in Spain (through the Carlos III Health Institute). Navas explained that "to obtain accreditation, a series of structural (spaces, infrastructures), process (projects, clinical trials, agreements) and results (publications, patents, company creation) criteria must be met. The Strategic Plan of IRIS-CC collects and financially evaluates the measures necessary for accreditation that must be met between 3 and 5 years from the launch. Other criteria include: the clinical trials unit, the biobank unit, the innovation unit, basic biomedical research laboratories, etc. These structures are considered in the Strategic Plan and measures have already been taken in this direction."

Accreditation and access to new resources for research are the Institute’s current challenges

The IRIS-CC has made it possible to pool resources from the fourteen member institutions and coordinate them to increase their possibilities of accessing funding for research. Jerónimo Navas said that "in addition, the IRIS-CC will participate in infrastructure calls that are announced in Catalonia and Spain." He also considered that "accreditation will mean recognition, but also greater access to funding sources, either directly (in the form of co-financing) or indirectly (facilitating access to alternative sources). At the sane time, the IRIS-CC is working on the development of a patronage policy."

Central role of the Faculty of Medicine

The UVic-UCC Faculty of Medicine has a central role both in the creation of the IRIS-CC and in shaping its future trajectory. Its participation is prescriptive to respond to the demands that the international research system makes on this type of institution. On the one hand, it must be a meeting point between the university and the territory’s health system and, on the other hand, it must have a majority of researchers who combine research with clinical practice - an academic and professional profile that is mainly concentrated in medical schools.

The participation of the Faculty of Medicine is prescriptive to respond to the demands that the international research system makes on research institutes in health sciences

In this respect, Marina Geli, director general of the Foundation for Higher Studies in Health Sciences (FESS), stressed that "85% of teaching and research professionals (PDI) at the Faculty of Medicine are clinicians and doctors who work in health institutions in the territory (65%) or in the rest of Catalonia (35%), especially in the large hospitals of the Barcelona metropolitan region. This 35% of PDI are professionals with experience and long careers in healthcare, teaching and research who collaborate with other teaching and research staff in the territory to expand their research. Around 100 of the 180 PDI of the Faculty of Medicine are attached to the IRIS-CC." In the end, added Geli, "the incorporation of the territory’s clinical professionals into research must improve the quality of their work, which will have a positive impact on the population’s quality of life, in addition to contributing new incentives, added to those strictly focused on care.

The emergence of the Faculty of Medicine, six years ago, was already a step forward in the creation of a space for the confluence of teaching, healthcare and research activities in central Catalonia. IRIS-CC must extend the potential for cooperation between these three areas. Geli recalls, as an example, what happened in Girona, Tarragona and Lleida with the creation of the respective research institutes linked to the health systems of these geographical areas: "The existence of these research institutions marked a before and after in its health system, a transformation that was pending in central Catalonia until now because there was neither a Faculty of Medicine nor a research institute." However, the general director of the FESS warns that time is needed for the impact to be evident.

Multifaceted views to solve health problems

The promotion of innovation is one of the strategic objectives of the IRIS-CC. Carlota Riera, Director of Corporate Development at UManresa, coordinates this area of the Institute with a broad vision of the concept, as an "attitude that must allow new and more efficient conceptions of products, services, organisations or teaching based on multifaceted views to solve health problems." He explained that, to do this, he relies on the Manresa Campus’s track record in incorporating innovation in all its projects and, in particular, on the "good practices it carries out, which are recognised internationally, in the matter of citizen science and shared agendas."

"Using spaces, technology and advanced methodological knowledge in simulation must allow innovation to form part of the results of projects and the process itself"

UManresa will also put infrastructures such as the Centre for Innovation in Simulation (CISARC) and the University Clinic at the service of the research groups. According to Riera, the capacity to use spaces, technology and advanced methodological knowledge in simulation should enable "innovation to form part of the results of projects and the process itself, and new patient treatment protocols to be tested with simulators or actors." In addition, the University Clinic could become a good partner to host clinical trials, since it has real patients as a care centre. In fact, one of the most important lines of work of the IRIS-CC is that of therapeutic innovation through the clinical trial programme, and the programme of scientific activities related to aging, frailty and chronic care.

Design and innovation at the service of health

The incorporation of the Elisava Foundation as a co-funding institution of IRIS-CC has coincided with its incorporation into the UVic-UCC university federation. Its general director, Javier Peña, explained that it is a way to form part of the University’s project. It is also an opportunity to "participate in a research project in the field of well-being and health, which at this moment is strategic for our faculty. For the first time in a research institute in the field of health, the knowledge of design and industrial design engineering is integrated in a cross-cutting way in all subject areas." Elisava joins the project with the desire to contribute the knowledge, experience and values that design has traditionally transmitted to other areas and disciplines.

"For the first time in a research institute in the health field, the knowledge of design and industrial design engineering is integrated in a cross-cutting way in all subject areas"

Elisava joins the institute with the desire to integrate its knowledge in subject areas far removed from what is traditionally understood by design (graphics, space, interaction, product, services, experiences). Peña believes that Elisava can make valuable contributions in areas such as proteomics, epidemiology, clinical trials or ethics "in the form of new methodologies, new ways of visualising information, coordinating work experiences and, above all, make plans for the future considering the contextual realities of the present and the user as a reference." In addition, he noted that "the core business of design is the transformation of ideas, desires and sensations into real products that enter the market and have a positive impact, from the graphic design necessary for the visualisation of molecules to programmes or artificial intelligence systems that help to model new drugs, through the design of adaptable beds and healthy spaces that meet the needs of everyone who interacts with the system."

A research institute in central Catalonia

IRIS-CC joins the ten biomedical research and innovation institutes in health and life sciences in Catalonia accredited by the CERCA programme. The location of the new institute outside the Barcelona metropolitan area and the rest of the provincial capitals of Catalonia is significant. It allows progress in the territorial rebalancing of Catalonia also in terms of research.

The first-level research activity that was already taking place in the territory will, from now on, have a tool to present itself and to grow. The partnership between the University and the healthcare world that is at the base of the IRIS-CC follows the model of most research institutes in Europe and in the rest of the world.

One of the distinguishing features of the Institute is that, in addition to referral hospitals, it integrates primary health care, social and healthcare centres, mental health facilities and regional hospitals. Supporting health research and innovation from multiple perspectives (rural, urban, mountain) contributes to the uniqueness of the IRIS-CC.