Awards

ICMAB is awarded with the "Severo Ochoa" Center of Excellence Award for the second time in a row

The Severo Ochoa Excellence award is given to centers that showcase leadership and scientific impact in the international scale, and will help fund some of ICMAB’s research lines until 2023. On 15 July 2020 the provisional resoluiton announced the awarded research centers of its last call.

Artur

15 July 2020

Severo Ochoa Award

The Severo Ochoa recognition to Centers of Excellence and the María de Maeztu recognition to Units of Excellence are part of the Institutional Strengthening program within the “Plan Estatal de Investigación Científica Técnica y de Innovación” of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. It is awarded to centers that have state-of-the-art competitive programs and that showcase a good relationship with society and companies.

The award, given to ICMAB for the "Functional Materials for a Better Future" (FUNFUTURE) project, is not only a sign of recognition for the selected centers, it also represents a source of funding that will help centers like ICMAB to cover for spendings in staff, equipment and infrastructure.

“I'm truly honoured and excited to lead this joint adventure for ICMABers. Achieving our common goals is a challenge, but I'm convinced we have fruitful developments ahead! FUNFUTURE will for sure be the cornerstone to build our future.” - Severo Ochoa Project IP M. Rosa Palacín

This is the second time the ICMAB has received this recognition. The first time was in 2016, when the Severo Ochoa accreditation was received within the program “Smart FUNtional MATerials for social grand challenges” (FUNMAT). The program identified these grand challenges to be addressed: clean and secure energy, smart and sustainable electronics and smart nanomedicine. During the four years of the program, there was an 84% increase in personnel, with a 40% being new researchers.

“ICMAB has been struggling since its creation to be at top international research center in the area of materials science. The first recognition as a Severo Ochoa excellence center in 2016 confirmed the success. Now the renewal of this excellence mention for 2020-2023 is even more enjoyable because it indicates we have been able to use this opportunity to become better.” - ICMAB Director Xavier Obradors

This call has introduced a new Severo Ochoa center, the Instituto de Ciencas del Mar (ICM, CSIC), has renewed the accreditation for the Institut Català d’Investigació Química (ICIQ), and has validated the recognition of the 8 centers that already had it during the last years. There are also three new Maria de Maeztu centers, the Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social (IPHES), the Departamento de Agronomía from the Universidad de Córdoba, and the Fundación IMDEA Energía, who are joining three other Units that are renovating their projects, which makes a total of 6 Maria de Maeztu centers and 10 Severo Ochoa centers.

In total, 7 out of the 10 new Severo Ochoa accreditations and 3 out of the 6 new María de Maeztu units are for research centers in Catalunya. These are very good news for the Catalan research area.

Severo Ochoa 2020-2023:

ICIQ-Institut Català d’Investigació Química
CRAG- Centre de Recerca en Agrigenòmica (Consorci CSIC-IRTA-UAB)
IAC-Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias
CNIO-Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Oncológicas
ICFO-Instituto de Ciencias Fotónicas
ICM-Instituto de Ciencias del Mar (CSIC)
BGSE-Barcelona Graduate School of Economics
ICMAT-Instituto de Ciencias Matemáticas (CSIC, UAM)
ICMAB-Institut de Ciències Materials de Barcelona (CSIC)
IRB-Institut de Recerca Biomèdica

Maria de Maeztu 2020-2023:

ICTA-Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (UAB)
IPHES-Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social
ICMol-Instituto de Ciencia Molecular
IMDEA Energía
Departamento de Agronomía de la Universidad de Córdoba
ICCUB-Institut de Ciències del Cosmos (UB)

Being a part of this list is really good news for ICMAB. In the words of ICMAB Director Xavier Obradors:

“All the ICMABers should be proud of this new achievement which provides us a new opportunity to generate exciting science and contribute to shape a better future! Congratulations to all!!”