- A study by the U.S. multinational Human Resources company Manpower reveals that Health and Pharmacy companies in Spain do not find the profiles they need in 82% of cases.
- This “talent mismatch” will be one of the topics to be addressed at the ‘BioMed & Tech Talks’, which will be held in Granada from April 8 to 11, coinciding with World Health Day and World Health Week.
- For Ángeles Barrios, Director of Public Affairs and Stakeholder Relations at the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT Health) in Spain, “the industry requires a series of profiles that are difficult to find at the moment”.
- Marcelo Vázquez, president of the Innovation and New Technologies Commission of the Confederación Granadina de Empresarios and president of the onTech Innovation Cluster, states that “there is a great imbalance between the demand for talent and what academic institutions offer”.
- Sarah Biel Gleeson, manager of the Instituto de Investigación Biosanitaria de Granada (ibs.Granada) and Managing Director of the FIBAO Foundation, believes that “support grants for researchers are essential to offer them stability”.
- The European Institute of Technology Health in Spain highlights the enormous possibilities for young people in the “rich and active” Spanish healthcare ecosystem.
Granada, April 3rd, 2024
“The mismatch between what the market offers and what companies are looking for requires an in-depth analysis,” says Francisco Ribeiro, Country Manager of the US multinational ManpowerGroup in Spain, which has conducted a study on the “talent mismatch”, which highlights that in the Spanish healthcare sector the profiles needed are not found in 82% of cases.
The lack and search for talent will be one of the topics to be addressed at the ‘BioMed & Tech Talks’ in Granada, which, coinciding with World Health Day and Week, will be held from April 8 to 11 at the foot of the Alhambra and Sierra Nevada.
BioMed&Tech Talks’, organized by Medina Media Events, is supported by the Progreso y Salud Foundation (FPS), of the Ministry of Health and Consumer Affairs of the Andalusian Regional Government, and representatives of the World Health Organization (WHO), Farmaindustria, the Andalusian Health Service (SAS), the Spanish Association of Biocompanies (ASEBIO) and health communicators associations, such as ANIS, AEC2 and Comunicabiotec, have already confirmed their participation.
The industry requires profiles that are difficult to find
Ángeles Barrios, Director of Public Affairs and Stakeholder Relations at the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT Health) in Spain, said before her participation in the BioMed & Tech Talks that “Spain is a rich and active ecosystem. And one of the most active in Europe”.
EIT Health, inspired by the prestigious MIT in Boston, is co-funded by the European Union and has extensions in Spain in Andalusia, Cantabria, Catalonia, Galicia, Madrid, the Basque Country and the Valencian Community. For Ángeles Barrios, “the industry requires a series of profiles that are difficult to find at the moment”, which is why Spain faces three challenges and three transitions: Digital, Ecological and Demographic. And the solution lies in public-private collaboration.
In the opinion of the director of EIT Health, the work of this institute with academic institutions is very necessary, as she considers it vital “to make the healthcare sector attractive to students of technological careers”, profiles that are increasingly in demand in this sector and which are not easy to find. In her opinion, “young people do not think of the healthcare sector as a place in which to generate business, but rather as something linked only to the medical side”. A perception that is important to change for Ángeles Barrios, who will also offer her point of view on Artificial Intelligence and Big Data.
Imbalance between talent demand and academic supply
Another participant in the ‘BioMed & Tech Talks’ in Granada will be the president of the Innovation and New Technologies Commission of the Confederation of Businessmen of Granada, Marcelo Vázquez, who is also president of the onTech Innovation Cluster, the most important cluster of technology companies in Andalusia.
For Marcelo Vázquez, Andalusia is in a privileged position to respond to the challenge of the “talent mismatch”. And in particular Granada, where the technology sector is growing at over 7% of the province’s GDP and will continue to grow in the not too distant future thanks to the expansion of the PTS (Health Technology Park) and the development of one of the projects that are generating the greatest expectation throughout Europe: the IFMIF-Dones particle accelerator.
Although there are very good expectations, the current reality is quite different, because, according to Marcelo Vázquez, “there is a great imbalance between the demand for talent and what academic institutions offer” such as the University or Vocational Training. For the president of onTech Innovation and Círculo Tecnológico, this is the worrying reality in terms of employment. Both associations are working on what has come to be called a third industrial revolution -in this case technological- in Granada with three major projects at the center of everything: a strategic plan for Artificial Intelligence, the expansion of the PTS and the IFMIF-Dones.
Support, essential for the stability of researchers
A fundamental element to encourage young researchers is grants. Sarah Biel Gleeson, manager of the Instituto de Investigación Biosanitaria de Granada (ibs.Granada) and Managing Director of the FIBAO Foundation, who will also participate in the ‘BioMed & Tech Talks’, believes that “support grants for researchers are essential to offer them stability”.
“In the last year, by changing internal management processes, we have increased our turnover in clinical research by 60%. Our goal is to promote research and collaboration with industry because the main beneficiary is the patient,” stresses Sarah Biel as the key to this success story.
Sarah Biel Gleeson will give details of her management of health research in the ‘BioMed & Tech Talks’, where she will also address the ibs.Granada/FIBAO strategic plan focused on three essential pillars in the search for scientific excellence: research projects, technology transfer and innovation, and clinical trial management.
For Sarah Biel Gleeson, in Andalusia “there is a very important research and innovation strategy”. In fact, the region is carrying out a series of initiatives that are being implemented by other communities, which speaks very well of the work being done. Moreover, on the horizon there is a window of opportunity such as saturation, which, in the opinion of the manager of ibs.Granada and the FIBAO Foundation, “offers an opportunity to attract talent and aid if it is used to develop research in an innovative and attractive way”.
Innovative format for a high-level event
The Hospital Clínico Universitario San Cecilio, located in the Granada Health Technology Park, will host the first edition of ‘BioMed &Tech Talks’: Your appointment with research and innovation, a new independent, transversal, international and multidisciplinary event that from April 8 to 11, 2024, coinciding with the World Health Day and Week, will give visibility to innovative projects in BioMedicine and BioTechnology.
The agenda will include two face-to-face sessions (Monday 8 and Tuesday 9 April) and two virtual sessions (10 and 11). This format allows speakers and experts who cannot travel to Granada to share their progress and messages with the entire community, which raises the academic level of this event to the highest level.
All BM&TTalks presentations can be followed through ‘The Observatory’, the digital platform of Medina Media Events, where all interventions will be available 24/365 for on-demand consumption, like Netflix, but free of charge.
The first edition of ‘BioMed & Tech Talks’ is organized by Medina Media Events in collaboration with the Fundación Progreso y Salud of the Consejería de Salud y Consumo de la Junta de Andalucía and is supported by GSK, Nokia, El Observatorio and the Hospital Clínico Universitario San Cecilio. Also collaborating are Andalucía TRADE, ASEBIO, Wellness Forum, Granada Convention Bureau, among others.