The Institut Catala de la Salut (ICS) is the largest public corporation providing healthcare in Catalonia. It is funded by Ministry of Health of the Catalan Government the Generalitat. The ICS has a staff of over 41,000 professionals providing health care for nearly six million users. The ICS manages 8 tertiary referral hospitals and 288 primary care centres in Catalonia. One of the 8 referral hospitals is the Hospital Universitari Germans Trias i Pujol (HUGTP) in Badalona, a 640-bed modern tertiary university teaching hospital. The HUGTP serves a local population of more than 400,000 and is the tertiary reference Hospital for 900,000 people. It provides local acute services and key regional specialties with high-technology facilities including: a comprehensive cancer program (medical oncology, haematology and radiation oncology clinic) and tertiary cardiovascular care (cardiac surgery, vascular and endovascular procedures) as well as others. http://ics.gencat.cat/ca/inici/

The Project tasks will be undertaken by three different and HUGTP’ Units:

• The Department of Ophthalmology at the HUGTP performs, annually, 10.800 first visits, 26.000 follow-up visits, 600 interconsultations, 1.300 intravitreal injections and 2.500 surgical procedures. Surgical activity is performed in two operating theaters simultaneously and uninterruptedly every working day of the week, while continuing emergency care is offered 24 hours throughout the Barcelona Metropolitan North and Maresme area, covering approximately 800.000 people. The Ophthalmology Department includes a Head of Department, 2 heads of section and 15 consultant ophthalmologists, covering all subspecialities (anterior cornea and segment, glaucoma, oculoplastic, neurophthalmology, pediatric ophthalmology, medical and surgical retina). At the same time, the service has 4 internal resident doctors (MIR) of the specialty and with 7 optometrists. The main lines of research in the service are clinical research in diabetic retinopathy, in the development of new biomaterials for vitreoretinal surgery, while developing and improving different implants for glaucoma surgery.

• The diabetes research group of the Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute lead by Dr Puig-Domingo focuses its activity on three different areas: dysfunction and cellular damage of the pancreatic beta cell, complications of diabetes and study of associated metabolic conditions, research in diabetes in primary care (epidemiology, and studies with large databases). In recent years the group has focused its study on the prevalence and risk factors associated with subclinical arterial disease in subjects with both type 1 (DM1) and type 2 (DM2) and its relationship with microvascular disease, mainly focused in retinopathy. The group currently has 14 members, including basic and clinical researchers, of whom 9 are active research projects as principal investigators.

• Neurosciences Department is considered an outstanding group in neurovascular research and acute stroke treatment, neurodegenerative and neuromuscular diseases being Dr.Antoni Dávalos the director of the Department. The group is granted by the AGAUR and Instituto de Salud Carlos III in the scientific network RETICS INVICTUS PLUS RD 16/0019/0020. The main research achievements in the last ten years have focused on reperfusion and neuroprotective therapies in acute stroke, stroke code systems and design of pre-hospital stroke scales, effectiveness of mechanical thrombectomy, serum biomarkers of reperfusion injury, neuroimaging patterns related to stroke outcome, population-based studies of intracranial atherosclerosis and its impact on vascular events and cognition, Lewy body Dementia, genetic ataxias, Myotonic dystonia and McArdle's disease. The group currently has 24 members, including basic and clinical researchers.

ICS-HUGTP will participate in WP1, WP3, WP4, WP5, WP6, WP8, and WP9.