The Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC) is an international centre for biological and biomedical research and graduate training based in Oeiras, Portugal. Founded by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (FCG) in 1961, and still supported by the Foundation, the IGC is organised in small independent research groups that work in an environment designed to encourage interactions with minimal hierarchical structure.
The scientific programme covers a wide range of domains and is at the interface of different disciplines. These include cell and developmental biology, evolutionary biology, immunology and host-pathogen interaction, plant biology, sociobiology, computational biology and biophysics.
All resources are at the disposal of all IGC scientists equally, and common services and equipment are also open to external users.
The IGC hosts a number of graduate education and training programmes. Since 1993 the IGC runs innovative PhD programmes, directed towards intellectual breadth, creativity and independent scientific thought. Also, the IGC has a strong tradition in promoting science in society with dedicated outreach programmes.
Around 400 people, including 300 researchers (students, postdocs, technicians and group leaders), from 41 different countries work at the IGC. Since 1998, 88 research groups have already settled in the institute. Of these, 44 went to other institutions, mainly other research centres and universities in Portugal.
In 1998, under the Directorship of António Coutinho, the IGC was restructured into the current set-up and mode of action. Jonathan Howard succeeded Coutinho as Director of the IGC from October 2012 until January 2018. Since 1 February 2018, Mónica Bettencourt-Dias is the Director of the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência.
IGC is member of EU-LIFE, an alliance of leading life sciences research centres in Europe.
History
The establishment of the IGC was initiated in 1961 when the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s board of trustees envisioned the creation of its own research centre to encourage multidisciplinary research, independent of universities, and without restrictions or prior interests. The original set up of the IGC included a Centre for Scientific Calculation (1962-1985), a Centre for Biology (1962), a centre for Pedagogical Innovation (1962-1980), a Centre for Agricultural Economy (1958-1986) and a Centre for Economy and Finances. A new building alongside the Marquês de Pombal Palace, in Oeiras, was projected to make up the new campus planned with a set of infrastructures including laboratories, library, canteen and animal facility. In 1967, the Centre for Biology was officially inaugurated at the new Oeiras campus with four research groups in Cell Biology, Pharmacology, Microbiology and Physiology and around 20 researchers. From 1966 to 1969, four IGC leaders passed away: Delfim Santos (Pedagogical Innovation), António Gião (Scientific Calculation), Flávio Resende (Biology) and Luís Quartin Graça (Agricultural Economy).
In 1968 Luís Archer, jesuit priest and biologist, widely regarded as the ‘father' of molecular genetics in Portugal, returns to Portugal to set up the Molecular Genetics Laboratory at the IGC, in the Department of Cell Biology. The year after, in 1969, it was set up the Estudos Avançados de Oeiras (Oeiras Advanced Studies) to provide workshops, summer schools and international seminars to scientists.
In 1984, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s Board of Trustees decides that IGC will be a research centre exclusively dedicated to research and pos-graduated training in biology.
In 1989, the Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica (ITQB) and the Instituto de Biologia Experimental e Tecnológica (iBET) were created and hosted in the IGC campus. With IGC, they will later form the Oeiras Campus.
António Coutinho, immunologist and Head of the Immunobiology Unit in Institut Pasteur, is appointed the Director of the Oeiras Advanced Studies in 1991. In 1993 Coutinho starts the Gulbenkian PhD Programme in Biology and Medicine (PGDBM), a pioneering programme in Portugal and one of the first of this kind in the world. In 1998, António Coutinho is designated Director of the IGC and starts a new phase of the institute as a ‘host institution' with the mission of identifying, educating and incubating new research leaders, providing access to facilities, and financial and intellectual autonomy to pursue research projects.