On 8 May 2026, ICN2 hosted an event as part of the Women Talent Programme to highlight, recognise and reward women’s scientific contributions. Organised by the Equal Opportunities Committee, the awards are aimed at reducing the gender gap in visibility at work.

The morning agenda included a series of talks on scientific projects presented by the researchers awarded in the previous edition of the programme (2025):

• Best Published Paper Postdoc Award 2025 (ex aequo) - Dr Marianna Sledzinska: MoS₂ Phononic Crystals for Advanced Thermal Management
• Best Published Paper Award – Postdoc (ex aequo): Dr Marta Delgà
• Women Talent Postdoc Grant 2025 - Dr Silvia Favero: Electrochemical Methane Oxidation to Green Fuels
• Women Talent Senior Grant 2025 - Dr Rosa M. González Gil: NANION: Development of Free-Standing Nanostructured Prussian Blue Electrodes for High-Performance Zinc-Ion Supercapacitors
• Senior Trajectory Awards 2025 - Dr María José Esplandiu: An interdisciplinary Scientific Journey of Adaptation and Reinvention

This was followed by the awards ceremony for this year's edition:

• Women Talent Senior Grants - Dr Kumara Cordero-Edwards: Flexophotovoltaic effect in functional oxides probed by Atomic Force Microscopy (FlexoFOxAFM)
• Women Talent Postdoc Grant - Dr Abigail Seddon: MECH-POM: Mechanistic Elucidation of Catalytic Heterogeneous Water Oxidation using POM Catalysts
• Best Published Paper Award: PostDoc - Maria Chiara Spadaro: ZnO Nanostars Decorated with Mass-Selected Au Clusters for Photoluminescence
• Best Published Paper Award: PhD Student - Karen Stefani Mejía Carmona: Size Control of Highly Monodisperse Citrate-Stabilised Magnetite Nanoparticles in Aqueous Media: The Role of Cerium Cations
• Best Female PhD Thesis Award - Dr Fanny Baumann: In-Situ Multimodal Analysis of Strain Evolution in Perovskite Solar Cells during Stability Assessment
• Alumni Trajectory Award: Zeila Zanolli

The event concluded with a networking coffee to strengthen the sense of community and exchange personal experiences. 

This initiative reinforces ICN2's commitment to equal opportunities in research and the recognition of female talent in science. It has been made possible thanks to funding from the Severo Ochoa Programme 2023-2026 (CEX2021-001214-S/ MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033).