Regenerative and precision medicines are emerging medical research fields that may provide novel treatments for a number of diseases, including musculoskeletal and neurodegenerative disorders. These disorders affect millions of people in all age groups throughout Europe and in other parts of the world and as such developing effective treatments that are able to reduce or combat their negative impacts are part of Portuguese national and regional strategies, as well as are of European importance. The areas of life and health sciences and of technology applied to health sciences are among the most productive areas in the Portuguese science landscape in terms of number of papers (and numbers of papers per FTE), their impact factors and number of citations. Concerning the areas of regenerative medicine, tissue engineering, biomaterials and applied stem cell research, Portugal´s publication record is notable. The Portuguese research institutions involved in the project have a significant track record of research activities and outputs in areas belonging to regenerative and precision medicine.
Nevertheless, there are a series of hurdles that are common to all of these institutions. First of all, the translation of the scientific developments to clinical practice is at very low levels. In the domains of regenerative and precision medicine if the transformation of scientific developments into clinical applications is not guaranteed, the economic and social benefits from the scientific investment are also compromised. The Portuguese institutions lack an organizational structure that is: 1) able to help the researchers to better focus their research and to give it a more applied perspective; and 2) able to act in the different steps of the translation of science into clinical practice and industrial applications. Another common hurdle in the Portuguese institutions is that most of them focus on specific aspects of the regenerative and precision medicine theme. It is clear that the research perspectives and approaches are complementary and a stronger interaction between the different research teams is beneficial. Finally, there is also a need to exploit the complementarities between the infrastructure and equipment (which are of excellent level) available at these institutions to boost their scientific outputs. These factors have driven the conception of the multi-campi Discoveries Centre on Regenerative and Precision Medicine.
Specific research activities and research staff of the current Portuguese founding institutions will be transferred and structured into the new Centre. This transfer enables a structuring effect on the Portuguese science in these relevant domains creating a critical mass and research excellence in Portugal integrated into one single autonomous entity. UCL, the UK partner, is also a founding institution and will be a full member of the Centre - with one of the Centre´s campi located in London. Through UCL´s integration and research of excellence, the visibility of the Centre´s research activities will grow significantly. Furthermore, UCL adds its knowledge in translational research and commercialisation.
The overall objective of the project was to develop an extensive, detailed and robust Business Plan for the new Centre ensuring that the Centre builds on its strengths, leverages R&D opportunities and fosters science of excellence with high visibility, so ensuring self-sustainability in the long-term.
