RSU to Open Largest Education and Research Centre in University’s History

On Friday, 31 March, at 14:00, the Rīga Stradiņš University (RSU) Pharmaceutical Education and Research Centre will be officially opened in Riga, at 21 Konsula iela. The new building complements the RSU campus in Pārdaugava and is the largest and most technically complex building in the University’s 70-year history.

 ‘This is not just a new building.

It is a state-of-the-art, world-class science hub to concentrate our knowledge and new pharmaceutical technologies that would help develop innovative solutions and create new dosage forms.

We have invested a lot and continue to work to contribute to science on a global scale and to the well-being of society,’ says RSU Rector Prof. Aigars Pētersons.

The centre’s underground floor and five floors above ground house the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, the Department of Pharmacology, and the Department of Applied Pharmacy, as well as the Laboratory of Finished Dosage Forms, which is very important for the development of research. The building features four auditoriums, 11 classrooms, 10 learning laboratories, and seven research laboratories. The Laboratory of Finished Dosage Forms is designed according to the principles of the industrial pharmaceutical industry, including the development of ISO 8 compliant cleanrooms.

A number of RSU study programmes will benefit from the new education and research centre: the second-level professional higher education Pharmacy and Medicine programmes, the professional Industrial Pharmacy and Clinical Pharmacy master’s programmes, as well as the Health Care doctoral programme.

The development of the concept involved international consultants and industry experts from Czechia and Estonia, as well as local experts from the pharmaceutical industry. Construction work started on 20 November 2020. The total cost of the project is EUR 22 million, of which almost EUR 13 million is funding from RSU and slightly more than EUR 9.1 million is co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Of the ERDF co-funding, slightly more than EUR 3.73 million comes from the SAM 1.1.1.4 project “Development of Pharmaceutical Research Infrastructure at Rīga Stradiņš University”, and EUR 5.44 million from the SAM 8.1.1 project “Improvement of the Study Environment at Rīga Stradiņš University”.

A big thank you for creating the project goes to the original authors of the idea, Prof. Jānis Gardovskis, former Director of the Research Department Uldis Berķis and architect Arvīds Līkops, the project management group headed by Vice-Rector for Administration and Development Toms Baumanis, Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy Prof. Dace Bandere and Vice-Dean of the Faculty Prof. Baiba Mauriņa and her team, Dainis Zemešs, Nils Rancāns and their colleagues from the Department of Infrastructure, Ingrīda Kalviņa, Mārtiņš Menniks and their colleagues from the Development and Project Department, Sabīna Bušmane and the team of the Legal and Procurement Department, as well as colleagues from the Information Technology Department.

A number of cooperation partners have also contributed to the implementation of this project: the designer of the Pharmaceutical Education and Research Centre SIA Nams and architect Līga Stade, the main contractor of construction works AS UPB, contractor SIA Kvadrum, construction supervision and design auditors SIA Būvuzraugi LV, feasibility study performers FIDEA, laboratory designers GPM Project, and technology consulting company SIA Labochemlv.

The object was constructed with the support of the project Pharmacy research infrastructure development at Rīga Stradiņš University (Agreement No. 1.1.1.4/17/I/011 ), co-funded as part of the Specific Aid Objective (SAM) 1.1.1.4 "Development of the R&D infrastructure in fields of smart specialisation and strengthening of institutional capacity of scientific institutions" and the project Improvement of the study environment at Rīga Stradiņš University (Agreement No. 8.1.1.0/17/I/006), co-funded within SAM 8.1.1 "To increase the number of study programmes of modernised STEM, including medicine and creative industries”.