Impact Archives - CERCA

Glossary

Comunicació — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 10:13:02 +0000

This document details the terminologies most broadly used by practitioners of research impact assessment and is the result of multiple contributions, mainly from the members of the CERCA RIAAB and Dr Julie Bayley.

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Impact of research

Comunicació — Mon, 01 Aug 2022 13:24:12 +0000

The programme has an advisory board (RIAAB) which main objective is to contribute to an impact strategy in the pursuit of success by analysing and monitoring how impact processes are organised in centres and in the CERCA system.

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ERC Grants in the CERCA system: achievements and challenges

Lluís Rovira — Thu, 28 Mar 2019 16:02:03 +0000

Over the course of the Horizon 2020 European research funding programme, CERCA centres have received 90 grants from the European Research Council (ERC), making them the sixth-ranked European player in terms of number of grants received, behind only the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS, France), the Max Planck Society (Germany), and Oxford University, the University of Cambridge and University College London (UK). This is a milestone in itself, as never before has a programme or institution in Catalonia, such as that of the CERCA system, had such high visibility in European research. The CERCA system obtained 50% of ERC grants in Catalonia and approximately 25% of those in Spain.

In addition, an ERC Synergy, the ERC’s most prestigious and rarely awarded grant, was obtained during this period. The CERCA system is also the European leader in ERC Proof of Concept (PoC) grants. All this puts us in an significant position in Europe, but not without its weaknesses, because subsidies are just that, and there is never certainty as to whether these levels can be maintained in future years.

However, this relative success is not accompanied by other elements one might think would logically occur. CERCA researchers hold no chairs on ERC assessment panels. Although we have outstanding researchers, including Clívia Sotomayor, Mara Dierssen, Laura Lechuga and Xavier Trepat, none of them are chairs. In contrast, other institutions, such as the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), with a longer history and greater international visibility than the CERCA system, occupy some of these prestigious positions. We clearly have work to do here. Europe is not aware of our reality and, if I may be so bold, I would add that Europe is somewhat reluctant to find out. This short-sightedness perpetuates decisions that are neither logical nor expected. This therefore marks a clear course of action for the near future.

The CERCA brand must be used as a mark of quality in Europe and everywhere else. Failure to do so is to shoot ourselves in the foot to the detriment of CERCA centres and the country.

And with regard to the ERC, this year, on 12 April, the CERCA Institute is organising a workshop to support researchers from the centres in order to increase their capacity to apply and pass through the filters for different ERC grant modalities. In this action, we will mainly be assisted by leading researchers who have already obtained ERC grants (or who are assessors), who will share the knowledge of certain issues that can be critical to passing the selection process with potential grantees. The specific workshop on ERC Synergy, featuring Elies Campo (August Pi i Sunyer Biomedical Research Institute, IDIBAPS), Ivo Gut (National Center for Genomic Analysis–Centre for Genomic Regulation, CNAG-CRG) and Xavier Trepat (Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia, IBEC) will be a major step forward in boosting our people’s participation in the call.

A European Research Council grant is not strictly speaking a scientific milestone, but it is an indirect indicator that our research is of interest to the world.

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Impact assessment in CERCA centres

Lluís Rovira — Mon, 08 Oct 2018 09:13:55 +0000

Measuring research impact is a fundamental tool for monitoring publicly (and privately) funded initiatives, especially in terms of accountability and advocacy. In the former case, impact gives an idea of the return on investment and shows how financial support makes things happen and solves problems. In the case of advocacy, impact favours increasing awareness in society and especially those in government who make funding decisions on the usefulness of generating such impacts and understand the sense of continuing to support scientific initiatives.
 Whatever the case, failing to measure impact means staying in the dark. Investing and putting money into certain actions without ever seeing their real impact is not the best option. This is why the world’s main, or at least most dynamic, scientific systems have for some years had in place impact assessment actions. Among them is the British case, where the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) highlighted several thousand case studies from British universities, mainly to assess their impact and thus guide investment in R&D. On the other side of the planet, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), the group of centres funded by the Australian Government, also launched a strategy to measure the impact of its research centres, explaining to the world what they know how to do well and the problems they have solved. The British case tackles accountability and the Australian one advocacy.
 Recently at CERCA, in 2018, we started collecting case studies from a number of CERCA centres. These will be analysed and assessed by a committee of international experts to draw initial conclusions, refine the pilot methodology used and thus strengthen our accountability and advocacy. We expect to see the first results by the first half of 2019.
 Impact assessment in research institutions is a necessity, especially for those that consume significant amounts of public resources in the Catalan research system. In the case of research, apart from the CERCA centres, serious impact measurements should also be made for large scientific infrastructures such as the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), the ALBA Synchrotron and the National Center for Genomic Analysis–Centre for Genomic Regulation (CNAG-CRG). Researchers, governments and the public need to be aware that these major initiatives are being carried out and what their positive consequences are. In the case of the BSC, there is a little information on its October 2018 impact assessment website, thus they may have seen the need for such analyses and are getting down to work. In the case of the ALBA Synchrotron, I know that an impact analysis was carried out in its early days, possibly still using primitive methodologies. This information should be retrieved and updated after the early years of operation. I do not know if the question has already been raised in the case of the CNAG-CRG, but it would also be a very good idea.
 Let us all push forward on this.

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The visibility of the CERCA programme

Lluís Rovira — Fri, 29 Jan 2016 12:00:17 +0000

Each year, the Generalitat de Catalunya allocates around 100 million euros to funding CERCA centres, which overall have a budget of move than 400 million euros. This government programme seeks not only to raise additional funds for research, by involving different actors such as universities, hospitals and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), but also to raise the visibility for the CERCA Institute to show Catalonia and the world the reality and potential of well organised and effective Catalan research, as is common in well developed countries and economies.  

The CERCA programme has achieved significant levels of execution in its research, as measured by its leadership in obtaining European subsidies and European Research Council (ERC) Proof of Concept (PoC) grants, its numerous prestigious high-impact publications, its contribution to international initiatives, the talent it attracts and the creation of companies. However, it has not yet sufficiently managed to raise the overall visibility of the CERCA Institute, besides the work of each centre individually (which is also important!).  

As an Anglo-Saxon might say, as a matter of accountability, CERCA centres need to become more involved (in exchange for the basic contributions they receive) by contributing assets to this joint brand which, according to certain indicators, overshadows European institutions such as the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), the Max Planck Society, CSIC, the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM) and the National Institute of Agricultural Research (INRA).

Press releases, websites, institutional agreements, participation in congresses and conferences, and many other activities are good ways of contributing to the common CERCA identity, which, as a platform, should make us stronger in scientific decision-making in both Europe and internationally. Failing to do so means losing assets.

More effort needs to be made on this issue by each of the 40 or more centres belonging to the CERCA Institute. The acid test will be when every researcher knows they are working in a CERCA centre. We are yet to reach this point.

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