During the first period of BITRECS implementation, several actions were undertaken to kick-start the programme in accordance with the planned roadmap. As a first step, a campaign to engage IDIBAPS laboratories and partner organisations open to host potential candidates interested in the BITRECS programme, was developed. Adverts were published on the online career portals of internationally renewed scientific journals and in the Euraxess website. The selection and evaluation process were done through a 2-steps evaluation: remote evaluation conducted by an external evaluation agency to ensure the independence of the process and face-to-face interviews. Each candidate received an Evaluation Summary Report detailing their strengths and weaknesses in line with the pre-established evaluation criteria. To guarantee the excellence of the programme only 8 of the 10 fellowships available were assigned.
At month 24 of the project, 8 excellent and motivated researchers had been selected through an open, transparent and merit-based recruitment (OTM-R) linked to an international and peer-reviewed BITRECS call; they all chose one of IDIBAPS’ research lines to join the programme either through an outgoing mobility scheme within the framework of an international collaboration (12-18 months in an outgoing institution and 18-24 months at IDIBAPS) or an incoming scheme (36 months at IDIBAPS). As a result, 7 of the 8 selected fellows started their contract, 3 of them through the incoming mobility scheme and 4 of them through the outgoing mobility scheme. Later on, an official kick-off meeting was organised for them; this event aimed at providing the fellows with key information regarding the training and research programme and at giving indications on how to prepare the dissemination and exploitation plan according to their research proposals
During the second period of BITRECS the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the research progress achieved by each fellow has been carried out. The main objective of the BITRECS management team has been supporting the researchers to allow them properly to advance in their research projects and career paths. The main tasks carried out along this period have been: welcoming the fellows to the programme; supporting and guiding the researchers at their arrival at IDIBAPS and/or to other hosting institutions; monitoring the progress of both their research and career advancements through Yearly assessment meetings; offering a mentoring support; giving them top-level scientific supervision; facilitating their participation in activities of training, networking and outreach; guiding them to better disseminate or protect and exploit their results.
Additionally, the correct implementation of the whole programme has been also part of the work in this second part of the project. The management team has had to deal in some cases with incidents that arose during the development of the programme. For example, the fellows could request some extra months for their fellowships to compensate the COVID-19 pandemic negative effects. As a result, their fellowships were enlarged but, at the same time, the ending date of the whole programme had to be postponed as well.
Overall, many outcomes have been generated by BITRECS fellows and hopefully more results will still be achieved in the future. All those merits prove that BITRECS fellows, as clinician-scientists, are having a positive impact on the understanding and management of different diseases, always following the main aim of trying to benefit society.
