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For the director of Institut Imagine, Prof. Stanislas Lyonnet, "2018 has been a springboard year. After our International Scientific Board (SAB), the scientific groups of our Joint Research Unit were evaluated by the expert committees of HCERES (High Council for the Evaluation of Research and Higher Education), Inserm and Paris Descartes University. The HCERES recalled that the strength of our Institute, a unique initiative in Europe and in the world (in their own words), lies above all in its ability to focus on patients and to include clinicians in the basic research teams. The recommendations made by these experts, as well as those of our SAB, which was renewed with three new members during its annual visit in October, have served as the basis for the development of our project for the next ten years. As you will discover throughout this report, 2018 was also marked by high quality scientific production, and major advances in research and treatment. I would like to thank each of Imagine's members, as well as each partner and sponsor whose support has contributed to these discoveries."
2018: a lever year for acceleration
The year 2018 also marked a high point in the Institute's acceleration strategy for the benefit of research on genetic diseases and demonstrated once again the virtue of the public-private model exemplified by the Imagine Institute.
As Laure Boquet, General Delegate of the Institute, reminds us, "our private partners, benefactors and patrons, play an essential role in the Institute's development. Foremost among these is the Bettencourt Schueller Foundation, which finances half of our education through and for research program. As for the deployment of the medicine of tomorrow, it is supported by the Christian Dior Couture House through a chair. And let's not forget our Benefit Committtee, which enabled us to organize the 3rd edition of the Heroes evening and make it a resounding success, raising €7 million to finance our innovative research projects, in particular the acquisition of the latest generation of high throughput sequencers, which will open up new perspectives in terms of diagnosis.
2018: a year under the sign of openness
In 2018 also the links between our doctors and researchers, patients and associations, our campus, and our partners were enriched. The Institute has concretized its will to open up to the campus of the Hôpital Necker-Enfants malades and the AP-HP, with the affiliation of ten new rare disease reference centers to Imagine, bringing the number of reference centers attached to the Institute to 25, and increasing the capacities of the teams to conduct clinical research projects.
This report is also an opportunity to discover Imagine's 2016-2025 roadmap. Today, the Institute's ambition is to change the lives of families affected by genetic diseases.
And to make a difference in the years to come," says Professor Arnold Munnich, President of the Imagine Foundation, "we will continue to open up our gas pedal model beyond our institutional, clinical and geographic borders. Imagine's goal after 10 years of existence of the Foundation, is to confront the whole of global science through the constitution of an international network and a collective game on the European and global stage."
