The Government of Catalonia authorized yesterday, Tuesday 28 October, to finance with a total of 104 million euros the construction of the future PRBB Ciutadella, a building for advanced research in precision medicine that will be located in the new Citadel of Knowledge, on the grounds of the old Mercat del Peix.
Of the total investment, €60 million will be financed through the granting of a loan from the Generalitat to the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park Consortium (PRBB), which is responsible for the management of the future building. The remaining €44 million will come from contributions from the Department of Research and Universities specified in the budget years between 2025 and 2029.
With this new step, progress is made in the completion of the construction project and the start of the activity of a hub that aims to strengthen Catalonia’s leadership in the field of international biomedical research.
The general director of the PRBB Consortium, Jordi Camí, and the general administrator, Jordi Medrano Taltavull, sincerely thank the collaboration of the research centres that will be part of the new PRBB Ciutadella building, the IRB, the ICFO, the CRG, the IBEC and the ICN2, as well as the involvement of their teams in the drafting of the executive project. They also express their recognition of the effort of the internal team of the PRBB Consortium, especially in the areas of Infrastructure, Legal Services and Economy and Finance. “In just seven months, together we have managed to make decisive progress on a project that will culminate, in two weeks’ time, with the tender for the works”, says Medrano Taltavull.
The Citadel of Knowledge
The PRBB Ciutadella building will be part of the Citadel of Knowledge (“Ciutadella del Coneixement”), a scientific and urban planning project to turn the Parc de la Ciutadella and its surroundings into a node of scientific knowledge, research innovation and higher education in Europe. The three-building complex will have a total area of 46,000 square meters and will house more than 1,200 researchers.
- The building for biomedical research will have 24,700 square metres and will house some 800 researchers and around sixty research groups from five BIST centres (crg, ibec, icfo, ICN2 and IRB Barcelona).
- The second building will have 7,300 square metres and will house the UPF Centre for Research and Innovation for Societal Wellbeing. It will be a meeting point for researchers from both the experimental sciences and the social sciences and humanities, who will develop interdisciplinary projects in areas such as planetary health, complex systems and data science, artificial intelligence, climate change economics and governance, biodiversity loss or global law and governance.
- The third building will be 6,500 square metres and will house the headquarters of the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE), a joint research centre created in 2008 by UPF and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). The IBE will bring together all its research staff at the new headquarters of the Mercat del Peix, where it will consolidate and expand its research project on evolution and biodiversity.
Jordi Camí highlights that, for the PRBB, leading the construction and management of the PRBB Ciutadella building is a challenge, a responsibility and a source of satisfaction. The project will make it possible to advance in the creation of a cluster, enhancing the resources, talents and capacities that will be concentrated in this area. It will be carried out following the PRBB model, which has been defined and improved over the last twenty years. The involvement of all participating groups will generate numerous interactions and more opportunities for collaboration, thus favouring the progress of biomedical research in Barcelona.
