On November 15, a special event was organized to present to the whole ICN2 community the new directions and opportunities provided by the second Severo Ochoa Programme. The event was organized by the ICN2 Management and the Strategy Development Office, together with the Severo Ochoa Programme Committee.
After receiving for the first time in 2014 the Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence accreditation, the ICN2 was confirmed for another four-year term this award, which is the highest conferred by the Spanish Government to outstanding national research institutions. The second Severo Ochoa Programme was launched in July 2018 and will continue up to June 2022. Oriented at pushing for best performance in every field or research and related activities, it has a complex structure based on various pillars and areas and includes more than eighty actions. It also provides many opportunities for recruitment and international personnel exchange of which our researchers can profit.
The strategic plan designed for the second Severo Ochoa Programme was presented to the ICN2 employees in a general meeting held on November 15. The event opened up with an amusing introduction by Head of Marketing and Communication Àlex Argemí, which included a real time online test to verify the public’s awareness level of the figure of Severo Ochoa and of the Excellence Programme named after him. Then, ICN2 Director Prof. Pablo Ordejon provided an overview of the Programme, the changes with respect to the first one, the actions already taken and the road map for the next years.
More details about the new field of application introduced in this second edition, “Environment”, were discussed by Dr María José Esplandiu, while Dr Pablo Pomposiello presented the services provided by the Business and Innovation Unit to facilitate the exploitation of research outcomes. Ana Belen Ávalos talked about the ICN2 Community from the point of view of the Human Resources Department and, finally, Núria Benítez presented the gender actions which are being implemented at our institute.
The meeting closed with a toast to the second round of the Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence Programme. More information on the Programme and detailed action plans are internally available for consultation on the ICN2 Intranet. External visitors will be able to keep track of the Programme progression in a specific section of the ICN2 website.