Green light for the building that should catapult Catalan biomedical research

BarcelonaThe Government has reactivated this Tuesday the plans to create the hub research in biomedical innovation and precision medicine in the former Barcelona Fish Market. The Generalitat (Government of Catalonia) has announced an agreement granting the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park Consortium (PRBB) leadership in the architectural development of the new center, which is one of the cornerstones of the Ciutadella del Coneixement project. Thus, the building will be located next to Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) on land donated by Barcelona City Council.

"This is a highly valuable agreement that will enable the building to be operational by 2028," says Eduard Vallory, director of the Institute of Science and Technology (BIST), the entity that will manage the center in collaboration with the PRBB during the construction period of this hub of biomedicine and frontier research. In fact, with this project, Barcelona aims to consolidate its leadership in southern Europe and hopes that the construction of the new center—which will coexist with the Pasqual Maragall Foundation, the Hospital del Mar, and the UPF Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences—will bring together a thousand researchers.

The Ministry of Research and Universities explains that this agreement is a decisive step to promote the construction and start the activity of the hub, which has the ambitious goal of spearheading the transformation of Barcelona's vast park and its surroundings into a leading hub for knowledge, dissemination, research, and innovation in Europe. This project has a budget of €92 million, and the goal of defining an optimal financing model to carry it out has been three years in the making—since only the Generalitat (Catalan Government) can provide guarantees to the European Investment Bank (EIB). Thus, the executive branch has opted to authorize a grant for the BIST to cover the costs arising from the project's execution, to be subsequently transferred to the PRBB. Afterward, according to the agreement, the PRBB will be responsible for the promotion and operation of the spaces.

Three key axes in the city

The future building represents almost two-thirds (20,600 m²) of the total block of the former Mercado del Pez, which will also house the new building of the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE), a subsidiary of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the UPF, and a building belonging to the latter. Work on the joint foundations (basements and parking) has been underway since 2023 and is expected to be completed by the end of the year, when construction of the buildings can begin.

The goal is for groups from the Barcelona Institute for Biomedical Research (IRB), the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), the Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2), the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO), and the Center for Genomic Regulation (CRG) to work in this space. Furthermore, to work in a multidisciplinary manner, the idea is for the Institute of High Energy Physics (IFAE) in Bellaterra and the Catalan Institute of Chemical Research (ICIQ) in Tarragona to join forces. This will be the first time that seven research groups from the BIST community with distinct but complementary scientific areas will work in the same space.

Among the center's priorities is attracting foreign research talent. The current climate is conducive to attracting American researchers who, due to the Donald Trump administration's crusade against science, are considering coming to Europe to continue their research. Furthermore, Vallory points out that this project joins two other leading scientific centers.

On the one hand, the hub in the northern part of Barcelona, ​​where the first immunology research center in Spain will be located, the CaixaResearch Institute, which will be integrated into the La Caixa Foundation ecosystem and, therefore, will work in an integrated manner with the Barcelonaβeta Brain Research Center (BBRC) and the AIDS Research Institute (IrsiCa) of Oncology (VHIO). On the other hand, the Salud Diagonal axis – at the top of the city – where the Hospital Clínic will be relocated in a few years, next to the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences of the UB and several leading research centers, such as the Sant Joan de Dios Campus, the Barcelona Science Park of the UB and the Zona Universo.