With the arrival of warmer weather, there is a different atmosphere at the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB). The terraces, corridors and inner square become places for meeting, chatting and relaxing. These are small, everyday moments, but they form part of the daily life of a community that shares not only a building, but also projects, facilities, challenges and ways of working.
Science is often explained through its results: a publication, a discovery or a new technology. But behind every breakthrough lies a much larger network of people, teams and services that make it possible. During the ceremony marking the Park’s 20th anniversary, its director, Jordi Camí, pointed out that scientific excellence is never the result of a single individual working in isolation, but is built within a community. And over the course of two decades, the PRBB has been able to consolidate a model based on cooperation and trust. As Camí said, a model where ‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts’.
This sense of community is further strengthened through the Intervals training programmes and the social activities organised throughout the year, such as the choir, the orchestra and the women’s boxing team, as well as the volleyball tournament which attracts over 500 participants each year. These are moments that allow people to switch off from work and facilitate encounters between people from different centres and with different backgrounds who might otherwise never have crossed paths.
Today, the PRBB is a community of over 1.700 people with a wide variety of backgrounds, disciplines and career paths. And this is one of its great strengths. Because doing science also means sharing knowledge, forging links and feeling part of a shared endeavour.
As Jordi Camí said, drawing a parallel with the traditional castells of Catalan culture, without the ‘pinya’ there is no castle. And without infrastructure and community, there can be no science of excellence either.
