Horizon 2028: the great 'hub' of biomedicine of southern Europe takes shape

BarcelonaWhen the new Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB) Ciutadella opens its doors, presumably in 2028, nearly a thousand researchers from five major Catalan research centers will move there. But this ambitious project aims to become something more: its promoters claim it will be "the great hub in southern Europe". An aspiration shared by the President of the Generalitat himself, Salvador Illa, who this Thursday visited the works of the future building, underway a decade after its conception and after years of being stalled due to disagreements over funding and space allocation. "It symbolizes a determined commitment and an explicit demand for science to move the country forward and to place us in the [international] talent circuit from Catalonia," he argued from the grounds of the Old Fish Market of Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), where the new space will be located.In this facility dedicated to precision medicine, five major research centers will be located – all part of the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST).

Specifically, the Barcelona Biomedical Research Institute (IRB Barcelona) will be entirely relocated there, occupying 60% of the space, the equivalent of about five floors. Another 25% will be allocated to house various groups from the Institute of Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), while the remaining 15% will be divided among the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2), the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO), and the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG). The headquarters of the BIST will also be located there.

Forecasts place the facility's commissioning in 2028. In fact, the director of the PRBB consortium – and designated project manager –, Jordi Camí, has assured that in exactly two years' time the works on the new building should be finished so that the progressive transfers can begin. The governing council of the PRBB Consortium is made up of the Generalitat, the Barcelona City Council and the UPF, and the future building is one of the pillars of the Ciutadella del Coneixement project, a leading node for knowledge, dissemination and innovation in Europe that was conceived more than a decade ago. One of its ideologues, the former rector of the UPF Jaume Casals, explains that the start of this "strategic" work for Catalan academia, research and institutions has always been "collective", but it must be sought in the years 2017-2018 within the UPF.

"We had to take advantage of the space [near the university] that, at that time, had little interest for citizens," he says. For this reason, he continues, they contacted various leaders from the academic and scientific world such as the president of BIST, Andreu Mas-Colell, and Jordi Camí himself (PRBB), as well as key centers and institutions such as the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC). "We had to coordinate with the Generalitat, the City Council, the Provincial Council, and the Spanish government to reconvert the Ciutadella area into a true interdisciplinary university campus, with UPF as the hook of the project," he explains.

According to sources consulted by ARA, the BIST also advocated for the creation of a precision medicine building and found an opportunity in the plans and land of the UPF's Old Fish Market. The objective was to take advantage of this space –the City Council had the final say on the land next to the university, on Wellington street– to create a scientific and innovation ecosystem that, in addition to being integrated by the new PRBB, would also be integrated by the UPF's Àgora BCN for the Well-being of Society and the headquarters of the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE: CSIC-UPF). This was the initial core of the initiative, which was later expanded when the municipal government –then led by Ada Colau– promoted the multidisciplinary and urbanistic scientific project of the Ciutadella del Coneixement.

For three years, the BIST managed the cession of the land and the overall design of the buildings. However, within the Generalitat –then led by ERC– doubts arose about the economic viability of the project, as only the executive could provide guarantees to the European Investment Bank (EIB) for obtaining loans. Numerous disagreements also arose among the centers that were to relocate there regarding the distribution of spaces, a very valuable resource in research. There were voices demanding that the project be carried out exclusively through public funding, and with the new government –the current Minister of Economy and Finance, Alícia Romero, politically decided to unblock the situation– the consortium was created for the PRBB to implement the scientific project designed by the BIST.

"Accelerate transfer"

In March 2025, Camí takes the reins. "It has taken five government agreements and two municipal plenary agreements in Barcelona to move the project forward," he recalls. The Generalitat has authorized an investment over several budgetary years totaling 104 million euros for the construction, urbanization, and equipping of the center, 60 million of which are channeled as a loan to the PRBB Consortium and 44 million come directly from the Department of Research and Universities for the period 2025-2029. The BIST also contributed 6 million. The City Council contributes the right of surface for 75 years and contributes to the initial investments. The execution has been awarded for 77.5 million euros to the UTE PRBB Ciutadella (Calaf Constructura, Serom, Agrefred, Sogesa, and Suris).

The Minister of Research and Universities, Núria Montserrat, also highlighted that PRBB Ciutadella will allow a leap in scale as a country, and that it "will concentrate talent, technology, and knowledge in a single space to accelerate scientific transfer." In this regard, she stressed that Catalonia is already an international benchmark in biomedicine: "But projects like this allow us to compete in the global top division of knowledge and attract and retain research talent from around the world."

Designed by the Barozzi Veiga studio – which conceived, among other things, the Philharmonic Hall of Szczecin (Poland) – the new PRBB will have an area of 24,739 m² and will be characterized by having an architecture that is "singular, flexible, and highly adaptable" to the changing needs of research. "The physical proximity between engineers, biologists, and clinicians will allow us to accelerate research and turn it into real solutions for patients," argues Camí.