ITQ makes history
The Institute of Chemical Technology (ITQ after its acronym in Spanish) has won the Severo Ochoa award to scientific excellence.
The Instituto de Tecnología Química (Institute of Chemical Technology or ITQ after its acronym in Spanish) a joint Universitat Politècnica de València and Spanish High Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) centre located in the Vera campus, has won the 2012 Severo Ochoa award to scientific excellence granted by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness.
75 candidates applied in late July, of which 30 went on to the second stage. Finally, only 5 candidates received the award. This is due to the fact that the requirements for candidates to a Severo Ochoa award are extremely demanding. However, its endowment far surpasses the highest expectations: one million euros per year, from 2013 until 2016, for each of the winning candidates and priority access to other Ministry initiatives “as long as the principles of transparency and competition are followed”.
The aim of this award is supporting Spanish centres carrying out frontier basic research which are among the best in the world in their respective disciplines, and distinguishing them in order to make the more visible to society.
What is frontier research? According to Javier Rey, who was formerly the head of the CSIC Foundation, it is the research which is developed at the frontier of knowledge. It tackles controversial subjects where it is hard to provide answers, using atypical methodologies and obtaining unexpected results. It questions the prevailing paradigm, and allows a high degree of uncertainty about its success.
But, above all, it is the kind of research that may lead to significant progress that makes way for new approaches and ways of thinking, something which is rarely the case in standard science. This entails a high failure risk. As Rey puts it, life on the frontier is hard.
And this is everyday life at ITQ, but also in the Astrophysical Institute of the Canary Islands, in the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre, in the National Centre for Cancer Research, in the Institute of Photonic Sciences, in the Doñana Biological Station… and so on, for all 8 Severo Ochoa award winners in the first year and the 5 winners this year. A total of 13 crown jewels of Spanish research, where the most complex, stimulating, and attractive kind of science is being developed.
More specifically, ITQ works with catalyser, mesoporous materials, green petrochemical compounds and fuels, nanodrugs, computation and high-resolution techniques, and any other issue which is of interest to society, as they are able to reorient research towards current problems.
ITQ was started in 1990 by seven researchers, led by professors Avelino Corma and Jaime Primo Millo, in facilities located in the Universitat Politècnica de València car park. ITQ currently has a team of 180 professionals (53% of whom are women) and an annual budget of six million euros. To which one more million will be added in 2013.
