The purpose of our innovation team is to support innovative research projects with potential health, social or economic impacts. In these efforts, we are guided by the principles of responsible research and innovation to ensure public commitment. With regard to our activities encouraging public and patient involvement in health research, our most important result in 2021 was the conclusion of the four-year InSPIRES project (1), with 53 science shop projects implemented in the last year (123 in total) and the development of an online collaborative and crowdsourced database featuring science shops, citizen science and related projects, as well as an impact evaluation tool.
Regarding entrepreneurship, knowledge and technology transfer, we presented two proposals—one on antimicrobial resistance and one on pandemic preparedness—to the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA), are in advanced preparations for a spin-off on antimicrobial resistance with the technology centre Leitat, and submitted two new patents (one on a new delivery system for hydrophobic drugs and another on compounds with high anti-malarial activity). We also organised the second edition of the Energising Global Health Innovation and Entrepreneurship (ENERGHY) Summer School.
