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CERCA

CERCA, acronym for ‘Research Centres of Catalonia’ (Centres de Recerca de Catalunya, in Catalan), is the common corporative denomination of both a group of centres of research excellent, based in Catalonia, and the institution that coordinates these centres, named CERCA-Institution (Institució CERCA, in Catalan) or I-CERCA.

History and achievements

Since the devolution of home rule, the Catalan administration has promoted, under different legal forms, the creation and development of independent research centres, with participation of the Catalan administration, the Universities and other institutions.

The idea of associating these centres, keeping their operational autonomy while trying to create synergies among them, is attributed to Andreu Mas-Colell, former minister of University and Research. Mas-Colell foresaw the necessity of setting up a new institutional frame in order to overcome the existing institutional difficulties and promote excellence in research, by increasing the critical mass of the research centres, attracting research talent and fostering mutually beneficial research

The CERCA initial program 

The origin of CERCA lies on the CERCA program, launched in 2005 by the Catalan Department of Research. The main target of the CERCA program was to impulse the research activities of some existing Catalan research centres - the Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology (IRTA), the Centre for Demographic Studies (CED), the International Centre for Numerical Methods in Engineering (CIMNE), the Institute for High Energy Physics (IFAE), the Centre for Mathematical Research (CRM) - that had different institutional and legal structures. The program set some common general guidelines of activity and visibility that could lead to economies of scale and coordination in order to get a bigger impact of their scientific and technological output. Later on, other research centres, created after 2000, such as the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB), the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO) and the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ), joined the program.

The CERCA institution

In 2010, an act of government created the Institution ‘Centres of Research of Catalonia’, (Institution CERCA o I-CERCA), to continue and encourage the dynamic of collaboration and synergy set by the CERCA program. The main mission of this institution is to help and to develop the scientific and corporative projection of all the CERCA centres, as a way of increasing leadership positions. 

The CERCA Institution is a publicly owned foundation connected with the Catalan administration. The CERCA Institution headquarters is in Barcelona, Via Laietana 2, hosted in the Transmediterrània House (1921), built by Juli Maria Fossas i Martínez. The foundation is governed by a board of members who represent the several Departments of Catalan administration. The chair of the board is the Minister of the Department in charge of research affairs. The Institution has also a delegate commission and a director.

Achievements

Scientific policy towards the CERCA centres has been developed in a frame of political consensus and institutional collaborations, particularly with other research institutions (Universities, hospitals), as a way of creating win-win synergies. Institutional managers and political decision makers have followed through the key role of researchers. Nowadays, the aggregated annual budget of all CERCA is about 400 million Euros. Catalan administration funds 25% of the overall budget of all CERCA centres; the other 75% comes from other Institutions, competitive research projects, private contracts or private sponsorships. 

The scientific performance of the CERCA centres during these years has been mixed, although on the whole outstanding. In the period 2012-2014, the CERCA centres have published over 20.000 papers in Web of Science journals. 1116 of these papers have become ‘highly-cited’ papers. The ratio of foreign authors is 53% and only 9.2 % of these papers have not been cited yet. The Relative Citation Impact (RIC) related to citation obtained comparing to other papers in the same journal and year is 2.5, that is, two and half times more than the average citation.  

As a measure of excellence, the CERCA centres have been awarded with 120 ERC grants in the different calls (Starting, Consolidator, Advance, Prove of Concept and Synergy). 65% of the centres are coordinating H2020 projects. Moreover, 26 CERCA centres have obtained the HRS4R recognition from EU-Euraxess. Since 2014 CERCA joined Euraxess Charter & Code. 

CERCA centres

CERCA centres are public or private research institutions based in Catalonia. All these institutions have to fulfil some conditions established to preserve the quality of their activities and the excellence of their scientific result: all centres are non-profit organization with their own legal personality, created or co-owned by the Catalan administration. Other institutions, public and private, like Universities, can also be stakeholders.

Conditions

Scientific excellence is CERCA main target. Therefore, in order to be officially recognised as a CERCA centre, any research institution should submit its candidature and pass a scientific evaluation conducted by an external panel. The official recognition is given by the Department in charge of Research policy, once this initial evaluation has been completed and after conditions regarding the legal status of the centre, administrative procedures and scientific outcome have been fulfilled.

Particularly, CERCA centres must: 

• - be an autonomous institution with legal personality, partially or completely owned by the Catalan administration that has a main objective obtaining excellence in scientific research. 
• - be managed under private sector management principles with outmost flexibility and self-demanding standards. They normally operate under a multi-year program of activities, established in a Strategic Plan, and with an ex-post external supervision that respects the centres own independence.  
• - have effective and hierarchical governance, with an executive management direction empowered by and answerable to the centre’s governing board.  
• - have a research-active staff consisted enough to obtain international results. The research teams must be led by internationally renowned scientist and high degree of rotation among post-doctoral researchers. They tend to apply a talent recruitment policy, based on a clear definition of scientific career that evaluates the peculiarities of each scientific discipline and the recruitment strategy of each centre.  
• - conduct and promote cutting-edge research in order to get economic and scientific impact and to improve social and individual welfare. 
• - be able to have stable and significant structural funding through contracts programs signed with the Catalan administration.   
• - have an international renowned external scientific board that gives support and assessment and conducts a regular evaluation. This board must ensure that the centre’s guidelines agree with international excellence research standards. 

List of CERCA centres

The list of CERCA centres has increased since the start. They cover all scientific disciplines. Geographically, they are distributed all over Catalonia, although many of them are located near Barcelona. They are normally located next to Universities campuses or other research institution facilities. 

The following institutions, which passed the initial evaluation, are currently considered CERCA centres. 

·                    Agrotecnio – Centre de Recerca en Agrotecnologia

·                    CED – Centre d'Estudis Demogràfics

·                    CIMNE – Centre Internacional de Mètodes Numèrics en Enginyeria

·                    CMR[B] – Centre de Medicina Regenerativa de Barcelona

·                    CRAG – Centre de Recerca en Agrigenòmica

·                    CREAF – Centre de Recerca Ecològica i Aplicacions Forestals

·                    CREI – Centre de Recerca en Economia Internacional

·                    CRG – Centre de Regulació Genòmica

·                    CRM – Centre de Recerca Matemàtica

·                    CTFC – Centre Tecnològic Forestal de Catalunya

·                    CTTC – Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya

·                    CVC – Centre de Visió per Computador

·                    i2CAT – Internet i Innovació Digital a Catalunya

·                    IBEC – Institut de Bioenginyeria de Catalunya

·                    ICAC – Institut Català d'Arqueologia Clàssica

·                    ICCC – Institut Català de Ciències Cardiovasculars

·                    ICFO – Institut de Ciències Fotòniques

·                    ICIQ – Institut Català d'Investigació Química

·                    ICN2 – Institut Català de Nanociència i Nanotecnologia

·                    ICP – Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont

·                    ICRA – Institut Català de Recerca de l'Aigua

·                    ICRPC – Institut Català de Recerca en Patrimoni Cultural

·                    IDIBAPS – Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer

·                    IDIBELL – Institut d'Investigació Biomèdica de Bellvitge

·                    IDIBGI – Institut d'Investigació Biomèdica de Girona Dr. Josep Trueta

·                    IEEC – Institut d'Estudis Espacials de Catalunya

·                    IFAE – Institut de Física d'Altes Energies

·                    IGTP – Institut d'Investigació en Ciències de la Salut Germans Trias i Pujol

·                    IISPV – Institut d'Investigació Sanitària Pere Virgili

·                    IJC – Institut de Recerca Contra la Leucèmia Josep Carreras

·                    IMIM – Institut Hospital del Mar d'Investigacions Mèdiques

·                    IPHES – Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social

·                    IR-Sant Pau – Institut de Recerca de l'Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau

·                    IRB Barcelona – Institut de Recerca Biomèdica

·                    IRB Lleida – Institut de Recerca Biomèdica de Lleida

·                    IREC – Institut de Recerca en Energia de Catalunya

·                    IrsiCaixa – Institut de Recerca de la Sida

·                    IRTA – Institut de Recerca i Tecnologia Agroalimentàries

·                    ISGLOBAL – Institut de Salut Global de Barcelona

·                    VHIO – Vall d'Hebron Institut d'Oncologia

·                    VHIR – Vall d'Hebron Institut de Recerca

Activities

Each CERCA centres has a full autonomy in displaying its research and technological activities. However, each CERCA Institution has been charged with ensuring the correct development of the overall network of centres, and boosting the synergies, the coordination and strategic cooperation among the centres. CERCA institutions have also been entrusted with improving the positioning, visibility and impact of Catalan research and with facilitating communication between public and private agents. 

These synergies have been put into practice in a series of activities in research evaluation, knowledge transfer and management of research centres. Other activities seek higher social visibility of research outcomes and human resources involved in research.  

Research evaluation

Research evaluation is the main activity coordinated and supported by I-CERCA. Each institution must pass a positive external evaluation if it wants to be recognised as CERCA centre. On a regular basis (every 4 or 5 years) they are obliged to pass another scientific external evaluation. This evaluation is conducted according to internationally recognised criteria of transparent, external and independent standards.  

An international panel, that includes external internationally renowned experts specifically appointed for every single CERCA centre, visits the facilities, interviews the managers and assesses the achievement of the previously established objectives in a three-year period. The board focuses on the scientific output, the transfer of results, the recruitment policy, the internal administration and the visibility of the scientific results. Every single centre gets an alphabetic mark (A, B, C, D) according to past performance which can affect its funding and eventually its viability. The Board also produces an executive report that includes suggestions on future policy in a 5 period time.  

All CERCA centre were evaluated for the first time in 2012-2012; a second round of evaluations of all centres is currently under way in 2016-2018. 

Knowledge transfer

In terms of scientific output, CERCA performance has been outstanding. However, knowledge transfer has been traditionally the weakest element of the Catalan system of science and technology. Therefore, I-CERCA acts as a platform for the promotion of these activities, as a way of coordinating efforts among all CERCA centres.  

- PROVA'T: A funding program to support the production of prototypes and the valorisation and transfer of the results of research carried out in the CERCA centres. 

- GINJOL: A patent fund that finances the services needed to protect, exploit and market the results of research generated by the research projects submitted by the partner centres. 

Institutional support

I-CERCA has also promoted the program SUMA (CERCA centres integration program). It encourages projects intended to increase the critical mass and competitiveness of research lines in CERCA centres. The final objective is reaching corporate structures with bigger critical mass and scientific competitiveness. Thanks to this program, the number of CERCA centres has been reduced from 47 structures in 2011 to 41 in 2017. 

Women and science

CERCA favours the presence of women in positions of responsibility, as the current number of women occupying these positions is not proportional to that of qualified women. In order to avoid unconscious gender bias in staff recruitment, CERCA has introduced specific measures of gender policy in all CERCA centres. A video dealing with this topic released by CERCA has had high international visibility. 

Moreover, CERCA has a specific advisory board on gender diversity, charged with debating and proposing specific measures on this subject. These measures should tend to eliminate gender biases and gender barriers that do not allow making the most of this highly qualified human capital.  

Literature

Ll. Rovira,«CERCA Centres: The awakening of Catalan Research», Contributions to Science 12(1): 1-3 (2016) [doi:10.2436/20.7010.01.237] 

External links

 http://cerca.cat/en/