Restarting Badalona offers itself to the city to work on finding solutions to the situation created by Covid-19

Letter from Mr. Ferran Falcó

Appreciated,

Coronavirus. Word of the year. Probably word of the decade. Although we still do not believe how it is possible that something so apparently small has caused and is causing so much pain. So much terror. When we had not yet recovered from the recession caused by the fall of the subprime with Lehman Brothers, we found a brutal “butterfly effect” that threatens the world economy and that, in any case, puts us in the mirror.

The crisis of resold loans and the real estate sector made us lose ten points of GDP in five years. And this crisis, that of COVID19, will make us lose 15 in a single year. Yes, 15. Because 15 points are what tourism represents to the state GDP, and this year the seasons are, or will be, practically lost.

In this decade of sustained crisis, be it due to the fall of the house of cards where the brick economy was based, or because of the consequences – I think more profound – that this attack against the health, social and economic system of the European Union will have, the thesis of those who defend that the economy and the public agenda must reinforce and increase their commitment to research, innovation and technology, wins.

Restarting Badalona was born to promote a collective conscience and a common action to relaunch the city, to compete and cooperate in the metropolitan area. To break glass ceilings, to review policies and agendas, to make Badalona great by giving it a city of knowledge project.

This crisis strengthens that vocation and those objectives. Isolation has prevented us from working on some of the actions that we intended to implement during these weeks, but it has also allowed us to take some perspective. How important is the Can Ruti Hospital and the international biomedical ecosystem in Campus Can Ruti. How good that a city-based research center has been testing a global trial on the vaccine. How necessary it would be for the Can Ruti Health Campus to form part of the urban fabric. What a catastrophe that we have lost so much industrial fabric and are praying for robes, shoes and masks that we do not already have here. And above all, how many opportunities are open to us when we have to remake ourselves.

The first is to believe much more in spin-offs that come out of the university world and research centers and are incardinated with science and entrepreneurship.

The second is to reindustrialize ourselves. Catalonia continues to be an industrial country, no longer Badalona. But now we know that although we do many things, we do not have other essential elements. We do not do tests, or masks, or gloves, or gowns. We also don’t make respirators.

The third is that we must take advantage of the crisis to change working models and move. And to live.

Restarting Badalona is a project to talk about all this. Work for all this and strengthen Badalona as a city of knowledge and an innovative city, especially in biomedicine and in the health industry. Take care, let’s take care. And go ahead !!!

Sincerely,

Ferran Falcó