With about 120 employees, National Institute of Biology (NIB) is the largest independent Public Research Institution for Life Sciences in Slovenia. The Institute was established by the Government of the Republic of Slovenia in 1960. The basic activity of the Institute has been and continues to be basic, developmental and applicative research in the fields of biotechnology, biophysics, biomedicine and system biology.
National Institute of Biology (NIB)
The numerous activities taking place at the NIB are related to the environment, agriculture, food and, more recently and increasingly so, to human health. An important milestone in the history of the Institute was the establishment of the Marine Biological Station Piran (MBSP) on the Adriatic coast in Piran in 1969 and its recent upgrading into a modern research facility in 2006.
The focus of MBSP is ecological research, particularly interdisciplinary research concerning coastal seas. Other NIB research programs take place within the Department of Organisms and Ecosystems Research, Department of Genetic Toxicology and Cancer Biology, Department of Biotechnology and Systems Biology focus on topics ranging from viruses, plant and animal species to humans and their environment.
NIB works in close cooperation with affiliated higher education and research institutions in Slovenia and abroad. This synergy ensures that the knowledge produced at the Institute is widely accessible to society through education and outreach activities and is beneficial to the economy by being transferred into practice. At present, NIB is a project-oriented institution financed with grants from the Slovenian Research Agency (ARRS) and international grants including EU funding schemes (FP7, Eco-Innovation and ERA-NET, EU Cohesion/Social Fund, EURAMET, LIFE+, MARE etc.).
NIB is simultaneously involved in numerous international collaborations (with Brazil, France, Japan, South Korea, China, Russia, and USA) and, increasingly, in long-term contract research for the Centres of Excellence (COBIK, KC-BRIN, CIPKEBIB), pharmaceutical companies (LEK, d.o.o, Hidria, d.o.o) and a number of small and medium-sized enterprises. NIB has established its own technology transfer office (TTO) responsible for the management of the intellectual property and business development within a Consortium of Slovenian TTOs (including University of Ljubljana).
In 1995 NIB co-founded the Technology park Ljubljana and gave rise to its first spin-off company Biosistemika d.o.o. in 2010. Since 2000, NIB holds the quality management standard ISO 9001:2000 and has acquired the Good Laboratory Practice certificate according to the ISO/IEC 17025 standard in 2003. NIB is also a holder of national etalon for the plant-derived amount of substance/food. Undergraduate and postgraduate education represents another important aspect of NIB activities.
Nearly 80% of all NIB scientists at senior positions hold academic degrees and teach at various Universities in Slovenia, mostly the University of Ljubljana, where NIB acts as a partner in the Biomedicine graduate study program. NIB provides an extensive internal education program for its Ph.D. students. Also noteworthy is the study program Sensor Technologies, which was recently approved by NAKVIS and is part of the Jozef Stefan International Postgraduate School.
