Prof. Josep Samitier will step down at the end of 2025, with Manuel Salmerón appointed interim Director to ensure continuity during the transition.
Prof. Josep Samitier Martí will step down as Director of the BIST community’s Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) on 31 December, concluding thirteen years at the helm of the institution. While he will formally leave the position at the end of 2025, he will continue to collaborate with IBEC throughout 2026. Samitier, who is also a Full Professor in the Department of Electronic and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Barcelona, thus brings to a close a significant professional chapter, leaving behind a legacy of sustained growth and institutional transformation.
Since Samitier took the helm in 2013, IBEC has consolidated its position as a leading institution in Spain for research excellence, setting the standard in the field of bioengineering. This trajectory has been recognised through the institute’s receipt of the Severo Ochoa accreditation on three consecutive occasions — a distinction reserved for the country’s most outstanding research centres.
IBEC has also strengthened its standing as one of Europe’s most prominent bioengineering centres. The institute currently comprises 26 research groups, employs over 400 people, and reported an annual budget of €21.5 million in 2024.
Samitier (left) and Salmerón (right)
Samitier will remain associated with IBEC on a part-time basis as deputy director until the end of 2026 to ensure the successful completion of the institute’s current strategic plan and strategic projects from his third term as director. During this transitional period, Prof. Manuel Salmerón will serve as interim director, taking over the management of the centre and ensuring the institutional and operational continuity of IBEC until the selection process for the new director is completed.
Manuel Salmerón is an ICREA Research Professor at IBEC and an expert in biomaterials and the study and engineering of extracellular matrices for tissue engineering. Prior to joining IBEC in early 2024, he was Full Professor of Applied Physics at the Polytechnic University of Valencia. He subsequently joined the University of Glasgow as Full Professor of Biomedical Engineering, where he served as Director of the Biomedical Engineering Division from 2014 to 2022, and later as Director of the James Watt School of Engineering until 2024.
At the helm of the bioengineering of the future
In recent years, Josep Samitier has led IBEC through a number of high-impact strategic initiatives. These include the development of the scientific plans underpinning the Severo Ochoa accreditations awarded to IBEC by the Ministry of Science and Innovation, as well as the coordination of the largest state-level biotechnology consortium for health.
This consortium focuses on the development of new technologies for precision medicine and advanced therapies and forms part of the Spanish government’s complementary plans for transformation and resilience. With a total budget of €32 million, the initiative brings together partners from seven autonomous communities.
In Samitier’s words: “The scientific and technological development of bioengineering in the first quarter of the 21st century is causing a real revolution in our ability to understand how the human body works and how to tackle diseases with greater diagnostic precision and the ability to determine the most beneficial therapy for each individual. Alongside our ability to interpret and understand our organism at the level of molecular interactions, cells, tissues and organs, we now have the capacity to modify, control and construct mechanisms and structures that can correct defects or minimise deficiencies which are the basis of many diseases that, until now, had no effective treatment.
As IBEC prepares to celebrate its 20th anniversary, sharing this evolution with the entire IBEC community has been the most rewarding experience of my professional life.”
Strategic vision, commitment to excellence, and the ability to inspire teams have been fundamental in establishing IBEC as a leading institution in the research sector.
