The Jesús Serra Foundation accompaniment programme is renewed to provide advice to IRBLleida's junior staff

The Jesús Serra Foundation, part of the Catalana Occidente Group, and the Institute for Biomedical Research of Lleida Dr. Pifarré Foundation (IRBLleida) have renewed for the third year the programme to accompany scientific personnel in the preparation of health research projects. The Jesús Serra Foundation accompaniment programme provides the necessary advice to research staff, mainly new researchers who generally do not have funding, to present solid projects in all areas, including economic and communication. The aim is to maximise the chances of success in the call for proposals so that these professionals can obtain the necessary resources to continue with their projects or initiate new lines of research.

In the first two years of the programme's operation, more than 50 researchers have been supported and have managed to improve their success rates in the presentation of research proposals.

The accompaniment programme was created in 2019 as a result of an exhaustive analysis by IRBLleida of the results achieved to date by the institute's most junior principal investigators in the call for Strategic Action in Health of the Carlos III Institute (AES2020). It was observed that the projects had a solid scientific basis, but had room for improvement in perimeter issues such as the justification of transferability, the participation of agents from society, social impact, the appropriate distribution of the budget or advanced experimental design.

The programme is coordinated by IRBLleida's pre-project area, managed by Serafí Cambray and Núria Bahí, with the participation of the post-project areas, with Irene Rosell and Judith Muñoz, and Communication, with Meritxell Soria. Together they form a multidisciplinary team that aims to ensure that these groups of emerging and young scientists improve the quality of their proposals. The programme is divided into 5 modules, so that, despite the support focused on young groups, more experienced professionals can receive support in specific areas.