The Institut d’Investigació Biomèdica de Girona (IDIBGI) has launched the expansion of the new facilities in Girona and Salt. In total there are 1,000 new square meters that include new laboratories, a new culture room, an immersive virtual reality room and the restructuring of the offices, among other actions. An expansion that has cost 1.8 million euros and that, according to the institute, is a “bet on the future” thinking about the new Josep Trueta hospital in Gerona and the health campus planned in this space.
The director of the IDIBGI, Marga Nadal, points out that the expansion represents a “great leap forward” in research and also hopes that it will be an attraction for researchers to come to Girona to develop their career.
The M2 building of the Martí Julià de Salt Hospital Park now has a new space dedicated to research and biomedical research.
The IDIBGI has opened nearly 500 square meters of new facilities which, together with the 500 square meters of space in the Sant Ponç neighborhood of Girona, represent a “necessary and strategic” expansion of the institute.
The director of the center, Marga Nadal, assumes that this will serve to “substantially” increase research and biomedical research capacity, as happened in 2015 when the IDIBGI began to have its own building.
In this sense, Nadal also hopes that reputation and scientific publications will grow and that many researchers will opt to come to IDIBGI. “Not only do we want people from outside to be interested in us, but also people from Girona who have had to leave,” he explains.
The expansion works have cost a total of 1.8 million euros, of which 642,000 euros have come from the Generalitat, 200,000 from the Girona Provincial Council and the rest are remnants that remained in the institution from former benefits. In addition, the Salt City Council has subsidized 95% of the fees to carry out the works.
The manager of IDIBGI, Anna Ribas, highlights the expansion as a “look to the future to continue growing.” Ribas recalls that when a building of its own was obtained in 2015, it served to increase research and collaborations with other public and private institutions and, consequently, IDIBGI’s income.
In this sense, the manager assumes that with this expansion the interest on the part of companies in the sector to collaborate with the IDIBGI will increase, as, for example, happened with Hipra with the development of the vaccine.
