Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência

The Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC) was 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 was supported by the Foundation until it merged with Instituto de Medicina Molecular to become Gulbenkian Institute of Molecular Medicine on October 1st 2024. The IGC was organised in small independent research groups that work in an environment designed to encourage interactions with minimal hierarchical structure.

The scientific programme covered a wide range of domains and was at the interface of different disciplines. These included cell and developmental biology, evolutionary biology, immunology and host-pathogen interaction, plant biology, sociobiology, computational biology and biophysics.

All resources were at the disposal of all IGC scientists equally, and common services and equipment were also open to external users.

The IGC hosted a number of graduate education and training programmes. Since 1993 the IGC ran innovative PhD programmes, directed towards intellectual breadth, creativity and independent scientific thought. Also, the IGC had 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 worked 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 last 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 was the Director of the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência.   

IGC was member of EU-LIFE, an alliance of leading life sciences research centres in Europe.