Last year, the Basque Public Health Service worked on a total of 480 research projects that were organised by the Basque Institute for Health Research (O+Iker), one of the three bodies that make up the Basque Foundation for Health Innovation and Research, BIOEF.

According to the Basque Institute for Health Research’s Activity Report for 2007-2008, 135 of these projects (28%) began last year. Including other research aid given in specific grants for human resources and infrastructure, there were 544 projects and various research subsidies to the multiannual total value of 24.6 million euros, a sum which exceeds that of the previous year by 11%. Total investment in infrastructures managed by O+Iker in 2008 stood at 1.08 million euros.

Staff levels in research in 2008 were 760 and principal researchers in 2008 numbered 233; 15% of these research staff were lecturers from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) who are also on the staff of the Basque Health Service. Right now, about 10% of the doctors in the Basque Public Health Service are registered as researchers with BIOEF.

According to data from 2007, O+Iker’s principal areas of research are in health services and technology, which make up 24% of all the projects and 33% of all external funding (5.2 million euros). After this come genetics, biotechnology and models of illness, which make up 15% of the projects and 18% of external funding, while the areas of neurology, neurosurgery and neurophysiology constitute 15% of the projects and 13% of funding.

The institute under the directorship of Carmen Garaizar also obtained a total of 4.2 million euros in 2007 from provisions within the funds received by the Personalised Medicine Programme of the BioBasque 2010 Strategy, for the setting-up of infrastructures in the Basque Research BioBank (O+Ehun). The BIOEF foundation will also provide the economic and administrative management of the two health research institutes that are being set up in the Basque Country, BioDonostia and BioCruces.

As a result of the progressive increase in international projects within BIOEF, in mid-2007 the foundation created its own International Projects unit. To illustrate this growth, it has gone from being involved in 7 European projects in 2005 to 19 projects in 2008, (an increase of 171.4%). Furthermore, the number of projects in which the Basque Public Health Service collaborates with the scientific and technological agents in the foundation has grown over the period 2004-2008, and the Basque Health Service has ended up participating in 59 projects of this type.

The BIO Foundation has also acquired legal permission to process the rights and use the patents and intellectual property rights of the staff of the Basque Health Service, Osakidetza, and has up to now been responsible for seven future patent applications relating to various services and centres around the Basque Country.