Stars of research to help build the future

The EU countries are currently taking steps to set major scientific milestones for the period 2014-2020. The objectives that Europe has set for this period include not only making new improvements within society, but also ensuring that R+D+I plays a central role in advancing the construction of a more sustainable continent, one in which levels of social well-being and progress become a true point of reference. This promotion of R+D+I will take the specific form of what are called Smart Specialisation Strategies (RIS3), one of the central pillars of which is to ensure that knowledge transfer between basic and applied research is much more active, so as to generate new competitive possibilities based on defining the specialisation of territories into specific areas of activity, and thus facilitating the internalisation of the productive model, which is increasingly based on R+D+I, individual talent, patents and the effective transmission of knowledge to the business world.
Among the actors in Catalonia – in addition to universities, CSIC and hospital foundations – are the research centres promoted by the Generalitat of Catalonia, and which are grouped within the CERCA institution. CERCA is currently comprised of 44 centres throughout Catalonia, which employ approximately 12,000 people.
Ever since it was founded, the Residence for Researchers has made every effort to become a centre for promoting science, which is why the Catalan Foundation for Research and Innovation awarded the Residence for Researchers the National Prize for Scientific Communication in 2014, the year in which the CERCA Institution celebrated its 10th anniversary.
Based on the firm conviction that the research carried out in the CERCA centres must be brought to the attention of the general public, CERCA and the Residence for Researchers have organised the lecture season “Stars of research to help build the future”. This season of lectures, in conjunction with the lecture program held at the CSIC’s centres on the occasion of the organisation’s 75th anniversary, means that by the end of the academic year 2014-2015, the Residence for Researchers will have hosted more than 50 scientific lectures.
The program “Stars of research to help build the future” is based on presentations made by young researchers of great renown and even greater potential, and who explain the critical points of their research projects. These range from nano-photonics, metastasis and therapies against cancer to dinosaurs in the Pyrenees, artificial photosynthesis, the financial debt crisis and the fight against certain infectious diseases.
These new talents in the field of Catalan research will be some of the key players in the process of building a knowledge society that will have to create a much more streamlined system that will facilitate greater innovation, transfer to the private sector, competitiveness, qualified and secure employment positions and, in short, fostering policies that are more sustainable, socially supportive and fair.

Dr. Lluís Rovira (CERCA – Agency for the Research Centres of Catalonia)
Dr. Francesc Farré and Dr. Luis Calvo (Residence for Researchers)

Cycle: Stars of research to help build the future

Organized by: Residence for Researchers CSIC-Generalitat of Catalonia and Centres de Recerca de Catalunya (CERCA)