Friday, July 2, 2021

From IMDEA Food, we are launching the 2020 annual report describing the activities and the work of the researchers who are part of it, as well as its specific lines of research. Scientific research produces knowledge that contributes to providing answers to questions and problems in our society. On the other hand, the analysis of scientific production is essential for the evaluation of knowledge.

IMDEA Food scientific output in 2020 has been the highest in its history with 228 science articles published, a significant part in medium-high impact factor journals, with some with a very high impact factor, such as Nature Medicine or the Journal of American College of Cardiology. If this scientific output is analysed in relative terms of staff and/or budget, it is comparable to that of the best institutes at international level.

Industrial R&D has suffered greatly during 2020, which has forced IMDEA Food to redirect its efforts to keep up a high level of activity and attract resources. Staff numbers have been increased, surpassing the threshold of 100 people, with the incorporation of several excellent researchers from leading research centres such as Rockefeller University and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in the US, or the Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research and Norwich Medical School in the UK. External funding has been successfully attracted from national and international public competitive sources to the value of 2,358,028, so that the funding ratio with the Nominative Transfer exceeds 1:1. The Regional Department of Science, Universities and Innovation of Madrid’s Regional Government is to be thanked for working to increase the fundamental endowment to IMDEA in such difficult times, proof of its commitment to science in Madrid’s Region.

In terms of transfer and innovation, 2020 has also been a year of significant progress for IMDEA Food. Either through spin-offs or Madrid-based companies, several nutritional supplements and genetic tests have been brought to market, which are proof of the Institute’s vision of science with economic and social benefits and the success of its mission to bring to society products with high added value, based on scientific knowledge.

IMDEA Food’s international collaboration has intensified in 2020 through EIT Food which, adapting its working procedures to the pandemic, has managed to keep up the European impact it has achieved in recent years in terms of innovation, education and communication.

From the outset, IMDEA Food positioned its research-innovation project on Precision Nutrition, a science that emerged in the early years of the 21st century, but which currently has enormous potential for actions aimed at the well-being of the population and the necessary change in the economic model of the agri-food and nutrition industrial sector.

Annual Report IMDEA Food Institute