ICREA – the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies, founded back in 2001 with the support of the Catalan Government, this week turns fifteen. Created to contract researchers and academics of excellence from across the globe and to promote the strengths of the Catalan research system at international level, ICREA currently counts 255 appointed Professors from a wide variety of specialties spanning the life sciences and medicine, experimental sciences and mathematics, social and behavioral sciences, humanities, to technology and engineering.
Faithful to its three guiding principles – cooperation, international openness, and excellence, this prestigious virtual research entity — ´an institution without walls´, and in partnership with leading universities and research centers throughout the region, ICREA has championed the successful integration of its Professors from around the world who are awarded permanent, tenured positions to produce top-drawer research based in Catalonia.
Congratulating ICREA on its 15th anniversary VHIO´s Director, Josep Tabernero, observes, “Over the past fifteen years ICREA has done a phenomenal job in both attracting major talents to Catalonia and promoting the careers of its appointed Professors at international level. As importantly, and as testament to the excellence of research leaders it supports, ICREA appointed researchers have collectively secured 507, 1 million euros in research funding. This undoubtedly represents a tremendous injection in the growth and stimulation of essential research of excellence”.
Awarded to experts across continents, these highly-sought after ICREA contracts are considered as a seal of global academic merit – as are the reputations of the institutes at which recipients are appointed. To-date three leading VHIO researchers are also ICREA Professors: Joan Seoane, Director of VHIO´s Translational Research, Joaquín Arribas, Director of Preclinical Research at VHIO, and Laura Soucek, Principal Investigator of VHIO´s Mouse Models of Cancer Therapies Group (awarded in the year 2004, 2007, and 2014 respectively).
Representing both a privilege and a responsibility, these Professorships help expand careers at VHIO and also contribute to groundbreaking cancer science at both regional and international level.
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