A true biomedical research cluster is being built.

Doctor of Medicine, specialist in clinical pharmacology, Jordi Camí is the general director of the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB), emeritus professor at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) and vice-president of the Pasqual Maragall Foundation for Alzheimer's research.

The Government has approved entrusting the PRBB with the leadership of the development of one of the biggest bets within the global project of the Ciutadella del Coneixement. A building of almost 21,000 square meters on the grounds of the old Mercat del Peix, intended to house cutting-edge centers for research and innovation in biomedicine and precision medicine. It will be the largest construction in the scientific and urban complex that aims to restore the Ciutadella park and its surroundings to the prominence of the 1888 Universal Exhibition, which placed this Barcelona enclave before the eyes of the world.

--- When did the idea of a Ciutadella del Coneixement emerge?

--- The current concept began to be discussed around 2015, within the framework of some conferences promoted by the writer, consultant, and cultural manager Jordi Carrió in the Ciutadella park. Recalling how the park was born, as a byproduct of the Universal Exhibition, where facilities were built with the science of that era in mind, more than a century ago, Carrió suggested that it was time to rethink the park and, among other things, enhance the Museum of Natural Sciences. In those conferences, the name Ciutadella del Coneixement came up. In different press articles in 2016, Carrió already publicly reflected on the need to restore the park's dignity it had 100 years ago, and called for political impetus on the park's heritage legacy, to open it to citizens, and to the world.

--- As had happened in 1888.

--- Yes, and the Ciutadella Park was also the public park where, in 1882, the first public museum in Barcelona and Catalonia, the Museu Martorell, opened, which now has reopened as the Centre Martorell d'Exposicions, with a permanent exhibition. Carrió, in 2016, called for a global solution to the park's problems, solutions of a civic, historical, scientific, and urban dimension, because the Ciutadella had become a park enclosed within itself. Carrió kept pulling the thread of the need to reinterpret the scientific complex in a 21st-century key, and then I, when he died, continued. I do feel responsible, specifically, for having convinced the rector of the UPF at that time, Jaume Casals, to transform the plot of the old Mercat del Peix.

"With the Ciutadella del Coneixement approach, a global vision is proposed and interrelations between scientific institutions are promoted"

--- It has taken almost ten years, but we have achieved it. And all this chronology preserved in press articles must be kept in mind, more than anything to be respectful of those who own all these ideas.

--- Let's recap a bit and review the park and its surroundings that we are talking about.

--- In 2019, I participated in drafting a document for the future of Ciutadella as a knowledge cluster. I did it with Andreu Mas-Colell and the support of the UPF, with the aim of encouraging the Barcelona City Council to lead the urban transformation around Ciutadella Park through a top-level scientific complex. In that document, we explained that Ciutadella Park is the largest urban park in Barcelona after Montjuïc, and the oldest. The 1888 Universal Exhibition was the main determinant of notable buildings within the park grounds that have subsequently marked its architectural history to this day.

--- The Zoo was not there yet.

--- No, it was at the end of the 19th century when the Zoo was installed. And, already in the early 20th century, the City Council conceived a significant remodeling of the old citadel enclosure with the idea of turning it into a scientific park and a center for the dissemination of culture, in line with scientific advances throughout the 19th century. This is how in 1917 the facilities intended to structure a large natural science museum, the Museu Martorell, the Castell dels Tres Dragons ---by Domènech i Montaner---, the Umbracle, and the Hivernacle were presented. Around 1930, the Barcelona Botanical Museum would also be there, which, ten years later, moved to Montjuïc and was transformed into a garden and Botanical Institute, managed by the City Council and the CSIC. In 2010, the Museu Blau was created in the Forum Park, with collections from Martorell and Castell dels Tres Dragons. In 1986, the City Council founded a municipal laboratory on Wellington Street, next to Ciutadella, which would later merge with the Barcelona Public Health Agency.

--- The park has become less focused on science, but its surroundings have not.

--- Starting with the Campus of Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), in the old Wellington barracks, we have the Biomedical Research Park (PRBB), the Mediterranean Center for Marine and Environmental Research (CMIMA), also the Catalan Foundation for Research and Innovation (FCRI), where ICREA is headquartered. With the whole complex, and the focus of the Ciutadella del Coneixement, a global vision is proposed and interrelationships are promoted with a plan of uses and contents for the needs of the complex. It could not be that the 8,000 students and professors and the rest of the UPF staff could not directly and easily access the park. The park had to be permeable, connecting the districts of Sant Martí with Ciutat Vella through the park. And the City Council has been taking on the commitment in recent years, and now it is a fact. All this is simmering, it is being revitalized. And, in parallel, there is the plot of the old Mercat del Peix.

"With our almost 20 years of experience, we will move the initiative forward. We will respect, however, the distribution of space that had already been decided by BIST, as well as the scientific design"

--- What we call the old fish market is where that market was before moving to Mercabarna, and then it was an open-air car park, partly owned by the Barcelona City Council, and partly by the UPF. And they decide to roll up their sleeves to end up turning this space into a fundamentally biomedical scientific facility. Within the specific space of the plot, there will be three buildings. One of them is the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE), which is a joint operation of two patrons, the UPF and the CSIC. Another initiative is in a small building promoted by the UPF, with a project related to planetary well-being, addressing all current global challenges on these types of issues. And the largest building, almost 21,000 square meters above ground, is the one for which it was agreed a few days ago that the Generalitat will assume the costs, which is an investment of between 90 and 100 million euros, and they entrust the PRBB with carrying out the project.

--- How do you face this challenge?

--- With our almost 20 years of experience, we will carry out the initiative. We will respect, however, the space distribution that had already been decided by the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST, which until now had been leading the project), as well as the scientific design. We will respect all of that, and they will be able to be close to follow how the works are progressing, but it will be a change of model, we will build and manage it ourselves. It will be a PRBB building. The Biomedical Research Park is a facility that houses six centers. In total, 1,400 people can come here every day, on paper, including technicians, researchers, doctoral students... In that building, it is expected that there will be four or five centers, but mainly the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB), which is now in the Barcelona Science Park (PCB), and the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) will grow a bit; that is, there will be more centers in the field of medicine and biomedicine. The three centers that occupy the most space, in order, are the IRB, the CRG, and the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) and they will have to go there. We will assume the promotion of the largest building.

"The Ciutadella del Coneixement multiplies Barcelona's potential as one of the most important biomedical research hubs in Southern Europe"

--- It means finishing the project, building the building and, once built, exploring it, managing it, maintaining it and updating it, following a management model exactly the same as the one we have in our PRBB centers. That is to say, the centers will be for rent.

--- What does all this mean for Barcelona?

--- A true, very large biomedical research cluster is being built. Because, if you add it to what we already do here, it offers enormous potential. To begin with, it brings more critical mass, more opportunities for cross-fertilization, but above all it multiplies the potential of the city of Barcelona as one of the most important centers of biomedical research in Southern Europe. Barcelona is already beginning to be known as one of the strongholds in biomedical research in Europe, it is already starting to be heard in the world. And this is a brutal reinforcement, with projects like Ciutadella and also other poles, such as the Clínic and its expansion, as well as Vall d'Hebron and Bellvitge. The sum of all this that is now being prepared will make it multiply and become a very important pole.

"In its 20-year trajectory, what the PRBB has done has been to improve, mature, learn to do things better"

--- We inaugurated it in 2006, it's the same age as the iPhone. The PRBB was already born full, and what it has done is evolve for the better. In these 20 years, one center left, because it half-closed, but the best news is that we were able to incorporate the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL). In this time, the PRBB has improved, matured, learned to do things better. We have learned to better manage the building and to solve things that the centers demand. All this experience is what we will now put, already in the functional design, into the new building. They have entrusted us with a challenge, we accept it and hope to improve it.

--- What makes the PRBB more unique?

--- Here you can do multidisciplinary research like in few other places. Because there are people who study from the most nano level, the cellular factory, going through clinical research and ending with population research in the field of epidemiology and public health. Here is half of the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), for example. Of course, this means that here you can organize types of projects with people from such different worlds, which can be done in few places. The multidisciplinarity here is extreme, as I say, from the most nano to the most population-based. We also have very advanced, very expensive technological infrastructures, which can only be had in places where you have a certain critical mass, such as certain types of microscopy, very sophisticated equipment and services.

"We cannot talk about a calendar yet, but I think that, in two years or two and a half years, these buildings will already be built"

--- People want to come here, not because it's a very nice place by the sea, which it is, but because they know that here we have the technology they need and they are also attracted by the talent, well-known people who work here. All things being equal, we sometimes win when this person receives an offer somewhere else in Spain. If they get it in Switzerland, it's harder for us to compete with the salary, but we have the capacity to compete. And right now, within the PRBB we have an unusually high number of people with European Research Council (ERC) grants, which are very competitive, also people with ICREA contracts, which is very rare. Here, really, the activity is extreme. And now we will add more.

--- Is there already a clear timeline?

--- We cannot talk about a timeline yet. We need to understand what is happening and what we need to organize it. But I think that, in two or two and a half years, these buildings will already be built. Soon a political agreement will be made between all actors and a certain governance will be established.

"We have the opportunity to attract talent that is eager to flee the United States"

--- This has been gradual, but it has always improved. The origin of all this is the tradition of clinical medicine in the city. Barcelona had always excelled with a Clínic hospital, a Sant Pau, a Vall d'Hebron, and Bellvitge. This clinical excellence explains why there was subsequently the leverage for the research part to flow. Therefore, hospitals have a lot to say in the origins of this reality. Well, hospitals, and certain leaders of clinical medicine. Today Barcelona participates in the main lines of research in the European sphere. But, in addition, research in Barcelona has the City Council as an ally. In addition to the Generalitat, which is the one that pays the main part.

--- Has it always been like this?

--- If you review the last 25 or 30 years, municipal scientific policy has evolved, regardless of political color, Maragall, Colau, Collboni, there has always been and there is sensitivity for science. Because there are other policies that are very ideological and change, stop or undo projects. But this one doesn't. I believe that this complicity of the City Council must be valued. For example, the City Council in recent months has worked hard for AstraZeneca to come here. We owe this to municipal sensitivity and to Jordi Valls. Therefore, it is this combination of the implicit political act, because it is not written anywhere, because the scientific city has been protected and preserved independently of the government. And this makes talent grow and attract. Now, within our limitations, we have the opportunity to capture all the talent that wants to run away from the United States, due to the debacle that scientists face in that country.