Abstract

Historically, most of the Catalan biomedical research activity and associated research resources have been concentrated in the area of Barcelona, allowing this city to stand out in the bioscience field, both at national and international level. To strength the biomedical research activity of the Catalan regions of Girona-Tarragona-Lleida and to position them as referents within the European landscape, in 2019 the IDIBGI, IISPV and IRBLleida institutes, located in Girona, Tarragona and Lleida, respectively, created the GO_HERO consortium to join regional efforts and resources to become benchmarks in their strategic international areas. This initiative, supported with a grant from the Strategic Research and Innovation Plan for Health 2016-2020 (PERIS 2016-2020) (Department of Health - Generalitat de Catalunya), allowed significant professionalization of their research managers and increased the international competitiveness of the research activities developed at these institutes. The dissemination of funding opportunities was enhanced through a common newsletter and coordinated communication actions (website: https://goherohealth.com/). In addition, a personalized plan was drawn up for each research group considering their international experience (e.g. participation in international projects, collaboration with international partners/institutions, etc.), their needs and upcoming international calls.

Within the framework of this collaborative initiative, the GO_HERO project served as a platform where the participant institutes could share experiences and best practices to provide the best support to researchers and to promote excellent collaborative research in Europe and beyond. The sum of efforts led to significant results:
• 25% increase in the number of proposals submitted to international calls.
• an increase in the number of projects awarded (success rate of 11% in 2018 vs. 16% in 2022).
• an increase in the attraction of international funding, doubling the amount of captured funds.
• more participation of the researchers in international projects and networks.

This 2023, the consortium was awarded a new grant (PERIS 2022-2027) to support the continuity of this synergy. The new project, called Beyond GO HERO, seeks to consolidate the project units and strengthen their international capacity to acquire all the skills and knowledge required to take a step forward and increase the leadership in proposals within the Horizon Europe framework and beyond. The new project focuses on the following 3 key goals:

1. To strengthen and consolidate the international project units to improve technical support for researchers
2. To design and implement a specialized training plan for the research staff in the different R+D+I funding programmes of the European Commission, strategies and current policies (open science, gender equality, etc.)
3. To promote patient-centered biomedical research, innovation and the transfer of research results

The Beyond GO HERO project will make possible to go beyond the internationalization strategy built previously and help increasing the international visibility and recognition of the project management activities as well as the biomedical and clinical research developed in the IDIBGI, IISPV and IRBLleida. As a result, it is expected that a greater participation in international collaborative projects will promote the development of high quality research, accelerating the chances of translation of results into personalized solutions that can significantly impact society.