FUNDACION PARA LA INVESTIGACION BIOMEDICA DEL HOSPITAL UNIVERSITARIO DE GETAFE

Their core work

FIB HUG is the biomedical research arm of Hospital Universitario de Getafe, a public teaching hospital near Madrid. Their work centres on clinical research in chronic disease management and epidemiology — specifically diabetes and frailty in older adults, and the design and harmonisation of large-scale health cohort databases. In H2020, they contributed expert clinical capacity and real-world patient data access to two international projects, one focused on scaling evidence-based interventions to Latin America and low-income countries, and one building infrastructure for cross-national cohort integration. Their value to a consortium is direct access to a hospital's patient population and established clinical trial infrastructure.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Both H2020 projects began in 2019, so temporal evolution within the portfolio is limited. However, the keyword contrast across the two projects is revealing: DIABFRAIL-LATAM reflects hands-on intervention science — designing, testing, and scaling a clinical programme for a specific patient population in a specific region. SYNCHROS reflects a more infrastructural and methodological orientation — harmonising cohort definitions, integrating databases, and aligning data collection across funding bodies and health systems. This suggests a capacity to operate at both the clinical trial and health data infrastructure levels, with the latter being a possible growth direction.

FIB HUG appears to be moving from pure clinical intervention work toward health data infrastructure — cohort design, database integration, and epidemiological methodology — which would increase their relevance to digital health and real-world evidence projects.

How they like to work

FIB HUG has participated exclusively as a third party in both H2020 projects — meaning they provided defined services or resources to the consortium rather than holding a full partner role. This is a supporting expert profile: they contribute clinical access and domain knowledge without taking on project management or coordination responsibilities. Their 28 consortium partners across 14 countries suggest they are integrated into broad international networks despite this limited formal role.

Across two projects, FIB HUG connected with 28 unique partners spanning 14 countries, which is a notably wide reach for an organisation at third-party level. The inclusion of Latin American partners (via DIABFRAIL-LATAM) gives them unusual cross-Atlantic links rare among Spanish hospital foundations.

What sets them apart

FIB HUG occupies a niche that few Spanish research foundations can match: hospital-embedded clinical research with a documented focus on vulnerable elderly populations AND an operational connection to Latin American health systems — a combination relevant to any consortium targeting LMIC implementation or cross-Atlantic health data. As a hospital foundation rather than a university, they offer direct patient access and real-world clinical trial infrastructure that academic partners often lack. The trade-off is that they function as supporting experts, not project leaders, so a consortium should engage them for specific clinical or epidemiological inputs rather than coordination capacity.

Highlights from their portfolio

• DIABFRAIL-LATAM
  A long-running RIA (2019–2024) addressing diabetes and frailty simultaneously in elderly Latin American populations — an unusual EU-LMIC clinical trial bridging European hospital expertise with low-resource health systems.
• SYNCHROS
  A CSA focused on harmonising health cohort methodologies across multiple countries and funding bodies — a data infrastructure project with broad applicability to future population health research.