Our purpose is to contribute to reducing the impact of cardiovascular diseases in our environment and to generate prosperity, by leading research, innovation and training in this discipline in the national and international setting.
The way we intend to accomplish this is through our mission of carrying out cooperative excellence measures in the dual field of translational cardiovascular research and training. This action is intended to exploit, attract and retain talent, and should work out in explaining the mechanisms of cardiovascular diseases and produce benefits that can be passed on to the diagnosis, prevention, cure or palliation of this pathology and its after effects. They are also meant to contribute to our society’s prosperity, helping to protect its people’s health, contributing to generating employment and sustaining the development of the biomedical industry in our country.
The mission of the CIBERCV is essentially based on its responsibility to produce knowledge that can be converted into health and prosperity: identifying problems in populations and individuals, to later seek practical solutions in research, which should be improved on by further research after being applied.
We have specifically focussed our work on studying the damage to the heart muscle and its main consequences, to go further into the molecular and genetic mechanisms involved in heart failure and sudden death, and thus be able to develop tools meant for characterising, preventing and treating this problem.
Closely linked with the above, alterations to the arteries and the structures responsible for the integrity of the cardiovascular system and its interaction with the blood are still shrouded in uncertainty and also major factors of cardiovascular mortality, which is why tackling these is another priority of our research and training mission.
A dynamic approach and the close genetic and environmental connection of cardiovascular diseases make it a priority necessity to carry out studies on the population impact that these have in our specific setting. It is also of prime importance to perfect instruments enabling us to reliably establish the risk of cardiovascular disease in citizens with no symptoms, as well as their prognosis in persons who have already been established as having this pathology. Cardiovascular epidemiology is thus another essential element of our mission.
In the welfare society protecting us, the precision of medical action is being dizzyingly furthered by technological progress; this requires the study and development of molecular, genetic and structural biomarkers accurately personalising diagnostic and therapeutic decisions. All of this finally constitutes an inescapable responsibility as part of our mission.
VALUES
We have worked together with the same objective for a long time. This has led to the intermingling of the personalities and careers of CIBERCV members forming a certain style of conduct, a way of doing things, which identifies us as a whole and which we would like to share with all of you who have come here. This style is materialised in the following characteristics or values:
In a highly competitive and economically hostile setting which involves the National Health System and Spain’s main scientific structures, we are well aware of the enormous opportunity meant by our discipline in the general excellence structure of the CIBER. We are essentially responsible, and have chosen this value and the consequent obligation to render accounts to the institutions and society, as the main focus of our endeavours.
Our passion for cardiovascular science does not distract us from our real raison d’être: people’s well-being and that of their friends and relatives. The main foundation of our project is not curiosity or the search for renown, but in-depth knowledge of the disease and of the sufferings resulting from this, to attempt to put an end to these. We are thus firmly committed to producing practical knowledge which can be passed on in benefit of people’s cardiovascular health.
We wholly approve of the strict way the CIBER consortium controls the use of its financing and the scientific results of the different thematic areas and of its groups, and the compulsory regular public rendering of accounts of all of this. Transparency is another characteristic of our style that we will materialise in our form of government and in each and all of our activities: internally, in the institutional framework and in respect of society as a whole.
We understand talent to mean an integration of excellence, commitment and boldness, easier to achieve through cooperative work than individually or in isolation. An essential part of our responsibility has been to strictly apply this concept to the formation of the CIBERCV and we shall maintain the same rigorousness in the necessary regular appraisal of the continuity of its members.
We seek perfection in our research and training work, but we are aware that it is hard to accomplish and maintain this objective without continuous renewal of our assets. For this reason we will direct a good deal of our efforts to recruiting and retaining young talent, promoting its leadership. We will also identify and attempt to appeal to all those outside the CIBERCV who are better than us: for them to make us more perfect.
