Under the name of Sinergia, the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL), the Bellvitge University Hospital, the Catalan Institute of Oncology and the Bellvitge Medicine and Health Sciences Campus of the University of Barcelona will showcase the innovative research that they carry out during an open day for all citizens that will take place on Saturday November 16, from 10 am to 2 pm, at the facilities of the Duran i Reynals Hospital.
Bellvitge, in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, has one of the most active poles in biomedical research and healthcare in the country. Well within Catalan Science Week, and hand in hand with the City of L’Hospitalet, Sinergia wants to disseminate the responsible and innovative research that is carried out in the biggest healthcare and research infrastructures of our area and prove their willingness to move towards new ways of performing research, involving society to achieve a greater impact on health.
Sinergia is an activity driven by the PECT project “L’Hospitalet, an innovative health ecosystem”, promoted by the City of L’Hospitalet and co-financed by ERDF European funds, which aims to reinforce Bellvitge as an international reference in the health innovation field and generate new industrial and innovative activity.
The open day will offer a wide range of activities aimed at all audiences. In the garden area of the Duran i Reynals Hospital, the SaL’Hut fair will bring together the organizations linked to the Bellvitge campus, patient associations – such as the Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC), the Viladecans Coordinating Association against Cancer or the Catalan Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, among others-, the Blood Bank and the Emergency Medical Service. For the youngest ones, there will be the Experimenta space, with neuroscience and research workshops by La Mandarina de Newton and the AECC.
Located on a central space, the Quinaciència! stage will be one of the main focusing points of the day, with science monologues given by Bellvitge researchers, a Zumba masterclass organized by the Sports Department of the City council, and a concert of the Crash Manouche combo, of L’Hospitalet Music School-Arts Center.
Another outstanding area will be the one devoted to research innovation: thanks to the Gastronomic Association of L’Hospitalet and Baix Llobregat, attendees will be able to taste healthy food and drinks while talking with researchers. Finally, the students of the Bellvitge high school, which carries out an educational tandem with IDIBELL, will exhibit during the event the projects that they have carried out for the past three years: a crossing of arts and science.
Guided tours of the laboratories will be carried out in a very peculiar way: through a escape room (named IDIESCAPE), designed by Eduscopi. participants will become part of a research team that, in almost no time, must find the cure that overcomes the infection produced by a new and extremely deadly virus.
According to the members of the Communications and Scientific Culture Unit of IDIBELL and the City of L’Hospitalet, promoters of Sinergia, “when two or more elements are synergistically created, they yield a result that maximises the qualities of each one of them, and that goes beyond its simple sum… and in our city we know that research and innovation are synergistic agents of health.”
On Thursday 14, an off-Sinergia session will give the university students of the Bellvitge Campus the opportunity to enjoy a series of exclusive activities: guided tours of HUB’s new operating rooms and ICO’s robotic pharmacy, and a dramatized reading of “Obra de Cajal”, inspired by the life and work of Santiago Ramón y Cajal, one of the country’s great scientists and Nobel laureate.