The Carlos III Health Institute has awarded the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute one of the grants from the new FORTALECE program, aimed at accredited Health Research Institutes. Endowed with €2,500,000, the aid will promote the Smart Health Community (SHC) project.

Smart Health Community is a project that supports Value-Based Medicine through the promotion of health in the healthy population and comprehensive health care for pediatric and adult patients, in the form of a care and preventive continuum based on obtaining a large amount of biomedical data and its use through artificial intelligence tools. These, together with access to advanced disease models, allow us to obtain a complete and different image of the patient, which in turn allows us to offer innovative, personalized and quality care.

SHC is a key project to catalyze the biocluster, an innovative project in which the different actors that make up the Bellvitge Health Campus participate, and also to grow IDIBELL research in impact and quality. The project will strengthen the institution’s excellence groups and improve some aspects of the institutional strategy for attracting and retaining talent, which are part of its Strategic Plan.

Endowed with 30 million euros, the Fortalece program establishes a renewed research financing model. And its objectives are to strengthen pre-existing lines of research and innovation in Health Research Institutes, promote the generation of cutting-edge scientific knowledge aimed at improving health, and address the main health challenges of society.

The Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL) is a biomedical research center created in 2004. It is participated by the Bellvitge University Hospital and the Viladecans Hospital of the Catalan Institute of Health, the Catalan Institute of Oncology, the University of Barcelona and the City Council of L’Hospitalet de Llobregat.

IDIBELL is a member of the Campus of International Excellence of the University of Barcelona HUBc and is part of the CERCA institution of the Generalitat de Catalunya. In 2009 it became one of the first five Spanish research centers accredited as a health research institute by the Carlos III Health Institute. In addition, it is part of the “HR Excellence in Research” program of the European Union and is a member of EATRIS and REGIC. Since 2018, IDIBELL has been an Accredited Center of the AECC Scientific Foundation (FCAECC).