The UPF’s Ciutadella campus today hosted a major ceremony to sign the institutional protocol for the promotion of La Ciutadella Knowledge Hub, and to lay the first stone of the Mercat del Peix research complex. The protocol was signed by the Mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, the President of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, the Rector of the UPF, Oriol Amat, the Minister of Science and Innovation, Diana Morant, the Minister of Universities, Joan Subirats, the Rector of the UB, Joan Guàrdia, the rector of the UAB, Javier Lafuente, the president of the CSIC, Eloísa del Pino, the director general of the BIST, Eduard Vallory, and the director of the Pasqual Maragall Foundation, Arcadi Navarro.

After the signing, the representatives of the signatory institutions and those attending the event moved to the site where the Mercat del Peix will be built to symbolically lay the first stone, which consisted of the creation of the phrase “Planetary Well-being” from the letters that the participants had written. Also taking part in the laying of the foundation stone were the First Vice-President of the Parliament, Alba Vergés, the Catalan Minister of Economy, Natàlia Mas, the Catalan Minister of Territory, Juli Fernàndez, the Catalan Minister of Research and Universities, Quim Nadal, the delegate of the Spanish government, Maria Eugenia Gay, the First Deputy Mayor and President of B:SM, Jaume Collboni, and the Second Deputy Mayor, Janet Sanz.

On the floor of the future research complex, Martín Bonadeo, artist in residence at the UPF, has painted an ephemeral work of art representing planetary well-being and the need for research as a way to combat the climate and biological emergency. The groundbreaking ceremony included a performance by Vignesh Melwani, dancer and UPF alumnus.

One of the most powerful knowledge hubs in Europe

The Mercat del Peix, which will have a surface area of 46,000 square metres, is an initiative that arises from the institutional agreements formalised between Barcelona City Council, the Generalitat de Catalunya, the UPF, the UB, the UAB, the CSIC, the BIST and the FPM. The new site is key to La Ciutadella Knowledge Hub project, included as one of the objectives of the Barcelona Science Plan 2020-2023, and will replace obsolete spaces and facilities to become one of the great nodes of scientific knowledge, research innovation, and higher education in Europe.

The new Mercat del Peix complex will house a total of three buildings. On the one hand, the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST) building will be 24,700 square metres in size and will house some 800 researchers and sixty research groups from four BIST centres (CRG, IBEC, ICN2 and IRB Barcelona). BIST is a multidisciplinary research institute based on the capabilities of seven Catalan centres of excellence: the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO), the Catalan Institute of Chemical Research (ICIQ), the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2), the Institute of High Energy Physics (IFAE) and the Barcelona Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona).

The second building will be 7,300 square metres and will house the UPF’s Centre for Research and Innovation for Planetary Wellbeing. It will be a meeting point for researchers from both the experimental sciences and the social sciences and humanities. The centre will create a space in which to develop interdisciplinary projects in areas such as planetary health, complex systems and data science, artificial intelligence, the economics and governance of climate change, biodiversity loss, and global law and governance.

Finally, the third building will be 6,500 metres in size and will house the headquarters of the Institute of Evolutionary Biology, a joint research centre created in 2008 by the UPF and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). The IBE will bring together all its research staff at the new headquarters in the Mercat del Peix, where it will consolidate and expand its research project on evolution and biodiversity.

Just below the three buildings, the public company B:SM (Barcelona Municipal Services) will build and manage a new 7,000 square metre car park that will be integrated into the public car park network. The new car park is conceived as a mobility services hub and will include electric charging points, car-sharing rental services and a micro-distribution centre for parcels for citizens, among other services.

First major action linked to the Ciutadella of Knowledge

The Mercat del Peix project is one of the first actions of La Ciutadella Knowledge Hub, a scientific, cultural and urban planning initiative that aims to turn the area around the Ciutadella Park, in the centre of Barcelona, into a pre-eminent urban knowledge node in the city of Barcelona. It is an initiative promoted by Barcelona City Council, together with the Generalitat de Catalunya and Pompeu Fabra University.

La Ciutadella Knowledge Hub aims to attract new national and international institutions to this area, institutions recognised for their excellence in the field of planetary wellbeing, which will add to the existing critical mass to increase inter-institutional synergies and foster interdisciplinary initiatives.