BIOCAT LA FUNDACIO BIOREGIO DE CATALUNYA

Their core work

Biocat is Catalonia's biocluster foundation — a regional innovation agency that connects life sciences research with industry, helping health-focused SMEs and start-ups scale up. They facilitate public-private collaboration in personalised medicine, translational research, and medical technology safety assessment. Their role in EU projects is typically as a bridge organization: coordinating peer-learning among health innovation agencies and supporting research infrastructure networks like EATRIS-ERIC.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In their earlier H2020 involvement (2017–2019), Biocat focused on research excellence and clinical career development — supporting clinician-scientist fellowships and medical device safety testing. From 2019 onward, the emphasis shifted markedly toward innovation ecosystem building: scaling health SMEs, peer-learning among innovation agencies, and consolidating European research infrastructure for personalised medicine. The trajectory shows a move from supporting individual researchers to orchestrating system-level health innovation.

Biocat is moving from research support toward becoming a pan-European connector of health innovation ecosystems, particularly around personalised medicine infrastructure and SME acceleration.

How they like to work

Biocat never coordinates — they join as participant or third party, acting as a regional facilitator within larger consortia. With 77 unique partners across 26 countries from just 4 projects, they operate in very large networks, which is typical for an ecosystem organization that brings regional connections rather than deep technical capacity. Working with them means gaining access to the Catalan life sciences cluster and their network of health SMEs and start-ups.

Despite only 4 projects, Biocat has connected with 77 partners across 26 countries — a remarkably broad European network reflecting their role in large infrastructure and coordination actions. Their reach spans most of Europe with no narrow geographic concentration.

What sets them apart

Biocat is not a research lab or a company — it is Catalonia's official biocluster foundation, which gives it a unique intermediary position between regional government, academia, hospitals, and health industry. For consortium builders, they offer direct access to Barcelona's dense life sciences ecosystem, including hospitals like IDIBAPS, biotech start-ups, and health SMEs. Few partners can simultaneously mobilise clinical, industrial, and public-sector actors in one of Europe's top biomedical hubs.

Highlights from their portfolio

• EATRIS-Plus
  Their only funded project (EUR 144,720), contributing to the consolidation of EATRIS-ERIC — Europe's key translational medicine research infrastructure.
• BITRECS
  A 6-year clinician-scientist training programme linked to IDIBAPS, one of Spain's top biomedical research institutes, showing deep ties to Barcelona's hospital-research ecosystem.
• Peer2Scale-Health
  A peer-learning action connecting health innovation agencies across Europe — directly reflects Biocat's core mission as an ecosystem orchestrator.