Health research constitutes a key instrument for increasing social and economic welfare and sustainability and for improving the quality and expectancy of citizens’ life. A better position of Spain in the research area of oral health will be determined by the possibility of offering multidisciplinary and integrated research lines, with the collaboration between researchers of basic, clinical and public health sciences oriented to the resolution of problems. These advances in fundamental knowledge only will be translated in oral life quality and in people welfare when it can be applied for improving prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of oral diseases, which supposes the need for coordination between relevant sectors and research centres with the industrial sector.  This initiative intends not only to face new research challenges in Dentistry but to contribute to the adaptation of the research system with these new scenarios.