Overview

The Department of Medicine and Life Sciences (MELIS, former DCEXS) was founded in 1998 by the Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), a young and public research university born in 1990 and called to become one of the leading European universities. Within this framework, the great challenge of MELIS has been to successfully develop a project where research and teaching are firmly integrated. Together with the UPF’s Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, MELIS is responsible for three undergraduate degrees: Human Biology (since 1998), Medicine (2008), Biomedical Engineering (2011) and Bioinformatics (2016). The Department also runs Master’s degrees in the fields of annual-report-biomedicine, bioinformatics, pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, clinical laboratory sciences, and public health, and a PhD Programme in Biomedicine fully taught in English and recognised by independent agencies. Scientific research is perceived by the students, both undergraduates and postgraduates, as an essential tool in their studies.

MELIS is strategically located within the Barcelona’s Biomedical Research Park (PRBB), a large scientific infrastructure that gathers together several public research centres and is physically connected to Barcelona’s Hospital del Mar, thus being one of the largest hubs of annual-report-biomedical research in southern Europe.

This close contact has allowed MELIS to establish strategic alliances with surrounding research institutes affiliated with UPF such as the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), the Hospital del Mar – Medical Research Institute (IMIM), and the EMBL-Barcelona. Outside the PRBB, MELIS has established an alliance with the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST, which integrates top research centres of Barcelona) for coordinating a joint pioneering Master’s degree in Multidisciplinary Research in Experimental Sciences. Over the last few years, MELIS has achieved a remarkable presence in different research fields and growing research output and impact.

Remarkably, MELIS obtained its second María de Maeztu award in 2018 (“Unidad de Excelencia María de Maeztu”, funded by the MINECO, reference CEX2018-000792-M) which has allowed the continuation of the MELIS strategic research programme, which aims at promoting the department’s output including scientific exploratory and technology transfer projects and also training, outreach, and gender balance activities.

MELIS team