The ceremony celebrated at the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities was hosted by Minister Pedro Duque. The ICN2 Severo Ochoa Programme is a four year research strategy to strengthen the tools and the research performed in areas as relevant as energy, health, ICT and environment. A delegation of the 5 Severo Ochoa Excellence Centers and the 7 Maria de Maeztu Excellence Units participated in the event. The ICN2 delegation was led by ICREA Prof. Jose Antonio Garrido, Vice-Director of the ICN2.
The Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence accreditation is the highest national award conferred to the Spanish research institutions that stand out for the quality and impact of their research and for their scientific leadership. The award includes dedicated government funding (4 Million € per center) and spreads over a four-year period to support the projects ongoing and to foster the opening of new lines of research. Today the Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities, Pedro Duque, hosted an event in Madrid to hand the award to the 5 Severo Ochoa Excellence Centers and the 7 Maria de Maetzu Excellence Units, a similar line of funding devoted to smaller infrastructures, recognised in the last call of the Programme.
The ICN2 is proud to have been granted this prestigious recognition for a new term, which extends to 2022. The first accreditation arrived in 2014 and was focused in a research programme devoted to promote research in the fields of life sciences (medicine, health, environment), energy and information and communication technologies. The new Severo Ochoa ICN2 Programme consists of a strategic plan oriented to consolidating the achievements of the past four years and diversificating the ways our work impacts on the world around us.
The new ICN2 Severo Ochoa Strategic Programme focuses on four Application Domains (Information and Communication Technology, Health, Energy and Environment), three Enabling Platforms (Nanomaterials and Nanofabrication, Nanocharacterisation, Modeling and Simulation) and a detailed Technology Pipeline. This initiatives are supported by four Cross-cutting Areas (Recruitment and Training, Internationalisation, Exploitation of Research Outcome, Dissemination of Research Outcomes) providing an enriching environment for their best development.
The ICN2 delegation participating In the event was led by ICREA Prof. Jose A. Garrido, Vice-Director of the ICN2 and Group Leader, together with Lluis Bellafont, General Manager, Pablo Pomposiello, Head of Business and Innovation, Prof. Mónica Lira-Cantú, Group Leader of the ICN2 Nanostructured Materials for Photovoltaic Energy Group, Dr. Neus Domingo, Senior Researcher of the ICN2 Oxide Nanophysics Group, and Àlex Argemí, Head of Marketing and Communication.
Together with the ICN2 four more centers were awarded the Severo Ochoa Excellence recognition: Instituto de Neurociencias (IN), Basque Center for Applier Matematics (BCAM), Centro Nacional de Biotecnología (CNB) and Instituto de Astrofícia de Andalucía (IAA). You can access the full list of Severo Ochoa Excellence Centers and Maria de Maeztu Excellence Units at the Ministry webpage. Congratulations to all the awardees!