The Business Year Special Report
TO INNOVATE
For companies or research outfits that stand to benefit from the existing community in the park and add value to its existing ecosystem, there is no better place to be in Barcelona.
he Catalan region’s R&D environment is made up of a variety of players including major scientific facilities such as the Barcelona Supercomputing Center and the ALBA Synchrotron. Other key players included in the chapter are research centres such as i2Cat, Eurecat, and Leitat, as well as the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2) and ICFO, a world renowned center for photonics. One of the most popular lines of research in Barcelona and its surrounding areas is health and life sciences. According to BioCat Outlook, there are 89 research institutions in life sciences, with almost 800 active research groups today.
The impact of a strong research sector is wide reaching and includes growing economic output and social innovation. Another important feature of such research is that it serves to breed talent domestically as well as attract it internationally. According to Catalonia Trade and Investment’s official analysis, Catalonia receives the most investment in R&D, and the highest number of research jobs, in continental Europe. Another emerging trend that consolidates this position is large international companies, such as HP and Amazon, moving their R&D centers to Barcelona to take advantage of the rich ecosystem.
From the interviews we held, two factors of the success of the research sector became clear. First is the collaborative spirit imprinted in their
TDNA; big projects are often shared by many centers making use of each of their specializations. Testament to this is the number of clusters in and around Barcelona, including 22@ and Parc Cientific de Barcelona, which group together centers and companies in an attempt to promote knowledge sharing and create something of a community. Universities, too, play an important role in promoting research amongst their students through such collaborations.
Second is the public sector’s strong support for the field and general encouragement for new lines of research. Barcelona’s public administration has worked tirelessly to promote the research ecosystem abroad and continue attracting foreign investment.
Outside of the region itself, another institution that has been key in driving such success is the EU, one of the greatest investors in research and innovation projects. Through 2020, the EU ran its largest research and innovation program ever.
The culmination of these factors makes Barcelona an attractive location for anyone looking to develop research that requires a sense of innovation or cutting-edge technology. Xavier Torra, of Eurecat, concurred, stating that, "Barcelona has a lifestyle of creativity and open mindedness, and if we support this situation with technology, then it is an excellent environment to develop new ideas, products, and business models."
Can you give us an overview of the park?
It is important to have an overview of the life science sector in Catalonia to understand the origins of the park. Pharmacy and chemistry have a strong tradition in Catalonia, and there have been important pharmaceutical companies since the 19th century. We also have good universities in life sciences such as medicine, chemistry, and pharmacy, as well as excellent research hospitals spread throughout the territory. In the past 20 years, there has been a significant change in life sciences thanks to the emergence of biotechnology and genomics. More recently, the Spanish and Catalan governments decided to invest in the life science sector in order to make Catalonia a reference in that area. To achieve that, a couple of decades ago research centers not belonging to universities and important scientific infrastructure were created in Catalonia. At the time, a program called Icrea was created to attract the best researchers in the world to Catalonia, and some important infrastructures were created, including the Barcelona Super Computing Centre in 2005, the Synchotron, a particle accelerator in Bellaterra, and the National Center for Genomic Analysis. The Parc Científic de Barcelona was created in 1997 by the University of Barcelona as a science park with the objective of hosting excellent private and public research centers focused on the life sciences. The objective is to share scientific infrastructure and create synergies between private and public entities to foster innovation. Today we host research centers, non-profit organizations, groups from the University of Barcelona, and companies—a total of nearly 3,000 professionals work every day in our facilities. For all these members, we provide spaces, biology and chemistry laboratories, and offices. We also provide common scientific services, including laboratories with freezers, centrifuges, dark rooms, cell rooms, and microscopes that our members can use whenever they need. We also have an animal facility and three platforms: toxicology, proteomics, and chemistry and analysis.
What are your plans for expansion?
We still have some room for growth because the park has been built in phases. The last building, Cluster II, was meant to be finished in 2011, but it coincided with the global economical crisis. At that time the park management decided to finish the building but to avoid further investment. The five-story building was first occupied by the pharmaceutical Esteve, which settled in the fourth floor in 2011. The remaining floors were empty, and we had to find money to build the labs step by step during the following years. In 2019, we found an investor that paid to upgrade 10 new labs covering 600sqm, who has already been paid back with the rental fee we receive from tenants. We are delivering the new labs in December, and eight out of the 10 are already booked, which proves that there is a real need for laboratory space in Catalonia. We would like to repeat this formula in the coming years to finish the park in 2025.
How do you promote the park internationally, and how does one get a space inside it?
We promote the park through word of mouth among key players in the life sciences and innovation sectors. If a foreign company wants to settle into a laboratory or open new offices in Barcelona, this company will probably contact BioCat, the Catalan government agency Acció, or another company already established in the city. Most of these key players know about the park and its facilities, and we are usually recommended by the aforementioned. We also promote the park by attending international events and using social networks such as LinkedIn and Twitter and reaching potential customers thanks to our website published in three languages: Catalan, Spanish, and English. Once a company reaches out to us for information we verify its activity and their needs. There are two conditions for giving a company the green light: the company should benefit from the existing community in the park, and it must be interesting for the existing ecosystem, i.e. it must add value. If these two conditions are fulfilled, they are good to proceed.