Contract for Constructing the RSU Pharmaceutical Education and Research Centre Has Been Signed

Over the next few years, a new building will be built close to the Rīga Stradiņš University (RSU) central building - a centre for education and research at 21 Konsula iela. The multi-storey building will house modern study facilities and a world-class science centre, including a solid-state dosage laboratory.

RSU has signed a contract with UPB LLC on the construction of a new Pharmaceutical Education and Research Centre in Riga at 21 Konsula iela. The multi-storey building, co-financed by the European Union (EU) and with a total area of 7,151 m2, will house modern study facilities and a world-class science centre, including a Research Laboratory for Finished Dosage Forms. The plan is to begin construction this year and that the building will be completed within 18 months.

The new building will be a welcome addition to the RSU student campus that has already been established in Pārdaugava and will be one of the largest and most technically complex buildings in the university’s 70-year history. The plans include one underground level and five floors above ground that will house the RSU Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, the Department of Pharmacology, and the Department of Applied Pharmacy, study rooms and laboratories as well as the Research Laboratory of Finished Dosage Forms. Currently, the pharmaceutical wing at RSU is located in the main building at 16 Dzirciema iela but infrastructure restrictions do not allow the potential of the pharmaceutical field to fully develop, which is recognised as an aim both on a national and EU level.

This is an important step in the development of the study and research infrastructure at RSU and for the concentration of resources that will benefit current and future students, teachers, and scientists as well as society as a whole; this building will concentrate knowledge and new pharmaceutical technologies as well as facilitate the creation of new dosage forms.

Toms Baumanis, RSU Vice-Rector for Administration and Development

The price for the construction is EUR 8,468,500 (excluding VAT), and the project will be implemented with co-financing from the European Regional Development Fund. According to the Director of the RSU Department of Infrastructure, Dainis Zemešs, the deadline to complete the construction work is 77 weeks from the date the contract was signed, which means that the new centre should be operational at the end of spring 2022. In addition to the construction of the building, the university will also purchase technology for the new laboratory.

A number of study programmes will benefit from this new education and research centre because they will be modernised (the second-level professional higher education Pharmacy programmes, the Industrial Pharmacy and Medicine programme, the professional master's Clinical Pharmacy programme as well as the Pharmacy doctoral study programme).

The facility is being developed as part of the co-financed Rīga Stradiņš University Pharmacy research infrastructure development at Rīga Stradiņš University (contract No 1.1.1.4/17/I/011) which is part of the specific support objective (SSO) Measure 1.1.1.4 Development of R&D Infrastructure in Smart Specialisation Areas and Strengthening of Institutional Capacity of Scientific Institutions and the co-financed project Improvement of the study environment at Rīga Stradiņš University (contract No 8.1.1.0/17/I/006) of the SSO 8.1.1 To Increase the Number of Study Programmes in Modernised STEM, Including Medical and Creative Industry.