Anna Moleras: “IDIAPJGol shares the values of primary care”

The coordinator of the Technical Cabinet of the Institute talks about her work and her vision of the institution, which she considers consolidated and a reference in primary care research

Anna Moleras is passionate about her work. He joined IDIAPJGol in 2006 to cover a vacancy in the project management area. She later became secretary to the scientific director of the Institute, Bonaventura Bolíbar. When he retired and joined the current management, Moleras took over the coordination of the Technical Cabinet.

Our protagonist has degrees in Pedagogy and Psychology, with a master’s degree in project management. Currently, he is pursuing a doctorate at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, with a thesis related to the production of results from the research projects carried out in Primary Care. She declares very satisfied to work in IDIAP, which sees a consolidated, dynamic and close organization.

Restless and eager to learn, after work, when she is not working on her doctoral thesis, she likes to read, listen to music and travel. Since the pandemic, he has been doing it in a caravan, with which he has travelled half of Europe.

What tasks do you perform in the Technical Cabinet?

I am responsible, among other things, for the management of indicators, which we must report to the entities that make up the IDIAPJGol Board of Trustees and to the consortia of which we are part. I also prepare activity reports for the Board of Trustees and carry out data quality control, the management of the Institute’s website, together with Communication, and the collection of scientific articles published by our researchers. Now, in addition, we will take over from the Technical Cabinet the management of the research groups, which until now were carried out by the Project Management Unit. Another thing I do is the management of the data protection issues of the Institute. I am the institution’s data coordinator and I am the link between the researchers and the DPD [data protection delegate].

The Technical Cabinet occupies a central position, it has legs everywhere.

I see it as a very strategic area. It requires a very broad vision of all processes, from the moment the projects start until they end with the publication of articles. We supervise the entire research process.

How do you see IDIAPJGol?

It is a well-established institution, a pioneer in primary care research in the State. IDIAPJGol also has the values of primary care, longitudinality, accessibility, dynamism, proximity to people. But the Institute also shares the shortcomings and problems of Primary Care, such as the lack of time of the professionals, which causes them to have problems in being able to combine the healthcare activity with research. The other difficulty I see is talent retention.

From an organizational point of view, do you think there are things that should be changed?

I am a very critical person and I believe that we must always seek excellence. Changes could be made at the organizational level. We are good, but we are not excellent. One consequence of the lack of talent retention is that there is a lot of staff turnover. This is good because people come in with much desire, very motivated, but we must spend time training them. Perhaps more than organizational issues, I think internal communication and coordination between units should be improved.

Anyway, I believe that everyone in the organization makes efforts to make everything fit. In general, we are in good shape.

During your free time you have not completely disconnected from IDIAP, because you are doing a doctorate with a thesis that has to do with your work. What does this study consist of?

I want to see what makes one project end up generating articles and another does not, what factors of the project or the research team influence whether its results are published. It is information that I have at hand in my work. Every day I work with these indicators. The truth is that I thought it would be easier, but it requires a lot of effort, you must invest in a lot of hours. I work at night and, above all, during the weekends. Anyway, I’m happy; the effort is worth it, although I’m starting to get a little anxious, because I don’t have much left to finish it. I’m in the fourth year, I’ve already asked for an extension, and I only have one more year left.

Are there any results that are surprising you?

I can’t talk about results yet, because I’m in the analysis phase, but one of the things I’m seeing is that in the IDIAP we do many projects that don’t have funding. This has a positive side, because it shows that there are many professionals who want to investigate, but, on the other hand, this means that many of these works do not end up being published and do not have any impact or generate the transmission of knowledge.

How useful do you think your thesis will be for IDIAP?

I think it will help to open a line of work to link the articles we publish with the projects from which they start, and it may also help us to see which aspects of the project or the team we must focus on and work more to make the project more successful. In a certain way, that he could end up publishing his results and passing on the knowledge, which, in the end, is what interests us all. But first we must see which results we get.

If you have time between work and your thesis, what do you like to do? What are your hobbies?

I like to travel a lot. My husband and I have travelled everywhere. The sites I liked the most? Canada, the United States, Cape North and Lapland, China... I like to be in contact with nature. Two years ago, because of the pandemic, we bought a caravan, because we always liked going camping. With the caravan you can’t make such spectacular trips, because it limits the distance you can cover, but it gives you a lot of freedom. Travelling like this is very calm and relaxing. We have already travelled half of Europe. This summer we are planning to go to Germany, which is half a year away. In December, when we will celebrate 25 years together and 15 years married, we will probably return to the United States.

Apart from travelling, I like to listen to music, watch series, read... In this sense, I am very typical. I used to also do knitting and cross stitch, but now I don’t have time to devote myself to it. As for books, I like intrigue novels and romantic novels. Some of my favourite authors are Ken Follet, Dan Brown, Eduardo Mendoza, Eva García Sáenz de Urturi, Camilla Läckberg or Alice Kellen, whom I discovered through IDIAP colleagues.