Government to launch call for grants in October with €20 millions to fund research

Catalan Minister of Health Antoni Comín presented a new call for health research and innovation grants under the Pla Estratègic de Recerca i Innovació en Salut (PERIS) 2016-2020 to stakeholders in the BioRegion.

For the first time, the Plan includes a specific call for research grants. The 2016 call will be published in the first half of October, with a total budget of €20 millions, and will include 4 of the 14 instrumental programs laid out in the PERIS plan through 2020.

Thus, this year's call will include a program to help hire new or keep on existing scientists at healthcare centers, open to hospitals and primary care centers. Director general for Research and Innovation in Health, Antoni Andreu, explains that this call "expects to hire between 60 and 70 scientists and technologists to join research groups."

Another program that will be included in the 2016 call aims to allow healthcare professionals at hospitals and primary care centers to devote time to research, freeing them from care tasks and hiring substitutes. This action will focus mainly on nursing professionals because, as Antoni Andreu highlighted, "They are an essential part of the research system, involved in caring for and treating patients."

Additionally, the call will include a program to launch research projects dealing with primary care and society's health needs, through multi-center projects led by a primary care center with a hospital participating.

Finally, this year's call will start up a program to promote research projects dealing with areas the Ministry of Health has designated as top priorities, specifically in the areas of personalized medicine, regenerative medicine, independent clinical research in the pharmaceutical industry and cohort studies on specific diseases.

These are public, competitive calls for proposals in order to ensure maximum transparency in the awarding of resources among stakeholders. Several sessions presenting the call will be held between 28 September and 7 October at IRB Lleida, IGTP, ISPV, VHIR-VHIO, Idibell, Sant Joan de Déu, Sant Pau, Idibaps, IDIBGI and IMIM.

“A turning point in health research”

Speaking to 120 members of the scientific community, Minister of Health Antoni Comín called these grants a “historical leap forward that will mark a turning point in Health research carried out in Catalonia.” “PERIS seeks to align strategies to maximize our research capacities and maintain our position of leadership in Europe,” the Minister stressed.

Catalonia is the first community in Spain to launch these calls. These grants are geared towards any institutions that manage research activity in SICAT healthcare centers or the Public Health system.

The Pla Estratègic de Recerca i Innovació en Salut (PERIS) 2016-2020 was approved in June as a new instrument to plan and coordinate the general lines of research and innovation for the Catalan Ministry of Health over the coming years. The goals of the plan are to:

1. Promote participation of patients and the general public in research and innovation policies in the Catalan Health System
2. Boost the quality of research conducted in the health arena to ensure the excellence of our Health System
3. Encourage the transfer of knowledge generated by researchers and technologists to healthcare processes in the areas of prevention, diagnostics and treatment and the promotion of health
4. Strengthen the capacities and international leadership of health research centers in Catalonia
5. Promote training and employability of scientists and technologists in the Catalan Health System and strengthen the scientific skills of healthcare professionals
6. Integrate health research and innovation policies with existing policies in Catalonia
7. Foster the role of the Catalan Health System as an agent for innovation by creating mechanisms to speed up knowledge transfer to the productive sector
8. Promote dissemination and critical knowledge of scientific advances in the health arena

More information:

• Research and Innovation. PERIS 2016-2020 (in Catalan)
• Video of presentation on PERIS 2016-2020 (in Catalan)