Presentation of Severo Ochoa Award of Excellence

On behalf of ICFO’s Director Lluis Torner, ICFO manager Dolors Mateu was presented with the institute’s second Severo Ochoa Award of Excellence, identifying ICFO as one of the top research centres in Spain. Chaired by the Secretary of State for R+D+I, Carmen Vela, the award ceremony was held at the head offices of the Ministry of the Economy and Competitiveness and was attended by representatives from the 11 centres presented the distinction this year.

Launched in 2011 by the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain, the highly prestigious Severo Ochoa Centres of Excellence program was established to identify the top world-class research institutions in the country and allocate dedicated funding for them to conduct a cutting-edge research project for a period of four years.

Four years later ICFO has earned the renewed support of the Ministry of Science and Innovation with its second Severo Ochoa distinction, carrying with it financing for a million euros annually for the next four years.

In addition to ICFO, the following institutes have received the Award this year:

- IRB Barcelona
- Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS)
- Graduate School of Economics (Barcelona GSE)
- Instituto de Ciencias Matemáticas (ICMAT)
- Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares (CNIC)
- Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Oncológicas (CNIO)
- Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC)
- Basque Center on Cognition Brain and Language (BCBL)
- Centre de Recerca en Agrigenomica (CRAG)
- Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Barcelona (ICMAB)