The Ministry of Universities, Research and the Information Society ( DURSI) offers its institutional support to our investigation through a close collaboration. A good example of it is the rebuilding carried out in the Faculty of Medicine with DURSI's financing, which will endow IDIBAPS with 8.000 m2 of new laboratories of its own. These facilities are partially finished and working.

• Management infrastructure
  

  The administrative infrastructure that supports the research work of the IDIBAPS, capable of managing and generating resources as well as employing technical personnel, is the responsability of the Fundació Clínic per a la Recerca Biomèdica. IDIBAPS is jointly financed by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
  IDIBAPS' governing organ is the Board of Governors. The director of IDIBAPS is Dr. Joan Rodés, the director of research at the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona.

• Research staff
  

  The scientists at IDIBAPS come from the various research centres that make it up: the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Barcelona, the Hospital Clínic of Barcelona, the Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques de Barcelona-CSIC, and the personnel contracted by the Fundació Clínic. The current number of researchers attached to IDIBAPS is around 300. Furthermore, there is a large team of graduates of differing levels and scholars dedicated to research tasks that support the research lines carried out by IDIBAPS scientists. The work of some investigators is financed by programmes of the Fondo de Investigación Sanitaria, the Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA) and the Ramón y Cajal.

• Board of Governors of IDIBAPS
  
  President
  Mr. Ramon Moreno i Amich
  (Research Manager of the Generalitat de Catalunya)

  Vice-president
  Dr. Emili Gelpí i Monteys
  (Manager of Institut d’Investigacions Biomèdiques de Barcelona)

  Members
  Prof. Teresa Estrach Panella
  (Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Universitat de Barcelona)
  Dr. Juan Rodés i Teixidor
  (Scientific director of IDIBAPS and General Manager of Hospital Clínic de Barcelona)
  Dr. Lluís Calvo i Calvo
  (CSIC Coordinator in Catalonia)
  Marta Aymerich
  (Manager of the Agència d’Avaluació i Tecnologia Mèdica)
  Dr. Ramón Gomis Barberà
  (Research Manager of IDIBAPS)
  Carme Muñoz
  (Vice-Chancellor of Scientific Science Policy in Universitat de Barcelona)
  Dr. Josep Maria Piqué Badia
  (Medical Manager of Hospital Clínic de Barcelona)
  Joan Bigorra
  (Fundació Clínic per a la Recerca Biomèdica Director)

  Secretary
  Mr. Emili Bargalló
  (Manager of IDIBAPS and Fundació Clínic for Medical Research)

All the research that is carried out in IDIBAPS is strictly regulated by the applicable national bioethical rules. IDIBAPS has a reputable Clinical Research Ethics Committee (CEIC) and an accredited Animal Experimentation Ethics Committee. In addition, the Hospital Clínic's evaluation, support, and prevention Unit offers its investigators, as well as other public and private institutions, consultancy and support services for research.

In any scientific project, it is essential to demonstrate that the research staff has the scientific and intellectual capacity to carry out the proposed objectives. Today, the simplest and most reliable way to demonstrate this capacity is through the analysis of scientific production based on the publications and on the journals where original articles have been published. The impact factor of these journals is a useful measure to estimate the scientific quality of the researchers in a particular institution.

The scientific production of the investigators who are part of DIBAPS is very high. In the last five years, they have published 2,256 original articles. The actual impact factor of each article is 6*. The global impact factor for the journals where the above-mentioned articles have appeared is 8,875.839 points. Of these publications, 63% are in the first quartile of each specialisation, which means it one of the most out-standing journals. The annual median is 450 articles, with an average impact factor of 3,934 points.

Official statistics of the European Union show that the CSIC and the Universidad de Barcelona are the two most productive scientific institutions in Spain. According to the first bibliometric map on biomedicine in Spain (2002; J. Camí, Mapa de la producción científica española en biomedicina y ciencias de la salud), the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona heads the list of hospital centres with the greatest scientific production in Spain, with more than 2,900 publications between 1994 and 2000. The Clínic is among the ten hospitals of the EU in terms of the greatest scientific production. The collaboration among IDIBAPS' three scientific institutions, together with the institutional support of the Ministry of Universities, Research and Information Society de la Generalitat de Catalunya, guarantees sufficient critical mass to support and to increase the positive results of its research projects.

* Calculated by dividing the total number of citations by the total number of published articles.

All of this IDIBAPS scientific production has been carried out by its own researchers. But, without a doubt, it would have been impossible without the financial support given to the institution by official agencies such as: Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (Unión Europea), Fondo de Investigación Sanitaria (Ministerio de Sanidad y Consumo), Centro de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica, Comissió Interdepartamental de Recerca i Innovació Tecnològica (Generalitat de Catalunya), Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional y National Institutes of Health from United States. The global public funds received from agencies during the 1997-2001 period raises to 32.460.000 euros. During the same period, the economic resources from private sector have raised to 25.728.000 euros.

The amounts for the year 2003 contributed by each institution forming IDIBAPS are: University of Barcelona, 3,621,223 euros; Institut d'investigacions Biomèdiques de Barcelona of CSIC, 2,987,551€; Hospital Clínic of Barcelona, 17,910,876€; Fundació Clínic, 1,800,000 euros; Generalitat of Catalonia through DURSI, 1,800,000; and from the projects awarded to researchers, 4,308,757 €. A total of 49,066,677€. This is a clear demonstration of the fact that the institutions which form part of IDIBAPS and the researchers have complete confidence in IDIBAPS's scientific project.