Building science from contemporary Catalonia

     In January 2008, the results of the first “Starting Grants” applicants’ convocation by the European Research Council (ERC) were made public. This step was important in order to project, with more strength, the possibilities of scientific search challenged and carried out in Europe. As a state, Spain obtained the 8% of the economic support granted, and out of this percentage, a significant number were granted to researchers related to universities and research centres in Catalonia.

     The scientific net that has produced landmarks as the above mentioned is mainly a result of an effort made, along the decades, by professors and researchers at universities and research centres, especially at CSIC, so as to build a scientific-technical building capable of going beyond the narrow margins their work had been reduced to, despite the praiseworthy tentative made by the Board for Widening Studies and Scientific Research or by the Catalan Studies Institute. Both institutions were created in 1907 and, despite the fact that they were created for different purposes, they were the first steps made towards having a first class scientific building.

     Knowing the hard and abnegated task, overcoming difficulties of all kind, carried out along the years by most researchers, the  Residence for Researchers CSIC - Generalitat, Government of Catalonia and the Catalan Foundation for Research and Innovation organized a series of conferences under the title «Science and Catalonia of the XX century: the view of the scholars», which was held in November 2001 and January 2002. This series wanted to offer a modest but solid acknowledgment to the work done by scientists and researchers during their long careers. We are referring to the late Ramon Margalef and Oriol de Bolós (r.i.p.) along with others such as Antoni Prevosti, Ramon Parés, Carmina Virgili, Joan Vilà Valentí, Claudi Esteva Fabregat or Carles Bas, all of them played a leading role in developing and consolidating their respective subjects.

     Definitively, this work is meant as homage to these scientists who, from our country, have contributed to the general progress of the human knowledge on nature and society.

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