2023-11-15 19:49:13
Santander Bank will dedicate 32 million euros to research in Spain until 2025, in collaboration with CRUE Spanish Universities and the General CSIC Foundation, according to Ángel Rivera, the CEO of Santander Spain, in an event aimed at explaining the institutional collaboration between the three entities.
The event took place this past Tuesday the 14th at the National Library in Madrid, and was attended by the president of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), Eloísa del Pino, and the president of CRUE Spanish Universities and rector of the Universitat Jaume I, Eva Alcón.
The president of CRUE Spanish Universities has stated that “Spain suffers from an endemic lack of funds to finance R&D activity”, even though the Spanish university system is “one of the main actors in the generation of knowledge” , since “more than 60% of the research done in Spain, and 42% of the patents come from the campuses.”
Eva Alcón has stressed that successes in the field of research have been achieved with budgets that “barely reach half” of those of the European universities with which the Spanish universities share positions in the international rankings. Furthermore, she has defended that “support for research requires the participation of all institutional, public and private actors.”
Based on all this, Alcón has highlighted the relevance of supporting innovation from entities such as Santander Bankand has used the challenge posed by the Covid-19 pandemic as an example of public-private cooperation, through the ‘Supera Covid Fund’.
The president of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), for her part, has followed the same line of argument and has warned that “all agents in the scientific ecosystem, public science organizations, companies and civil society, must unite their forces”.
In the words of Eloísa del Pino, “for the first time in the history of humanity, all the social challenges on the table are also scientific challenges”, alluding to issues such as “making decisive progress in green energy, guaranteeing a just transition.” , safely address digitalization, confront new biomedical challenges, safeguard biodiversity and build a sustainable food system, eliminate poverty, expand and constantly improve democracies, and continue to deepen the understanding of human nature and the universe.
For Ángel Rivera, the CEO of Santander Spain, “If we progress we will make our country a better place so that no one has to go abroad, so that research can be done and work can be done in Spain.” Furthermore, he wanted to remember that Santander Bank has allocated 80 million euros to research in the last five years.
In Rivera’s words, “For research to crystallize into realities capable of generating wealth and employment, it must remain close to the challenges that society faces and link research activity with the processes of innovation and business creation.”
The initiatives that will be developed by Banco Santander, CRUE Spanish Universities and the General CSIC Foundation will support scientific and research work through the call for awards and recognitions, the promotion of scientific vocations through training programs, the promotion of employability and the development of the career of researchers through pre- and postdoctoral contracts and the promotion of mobility and obtaining the international mention of the Doctorate through different Santander Scholarships.
Alberto Muñoz de las Heras, researcher of the ComFuturo program of the FGCSIC, co-financed by Santander Bank through its Foundation to attract young researcher talent and improve their employability, and Gabriel Ángel García Benito, beneficiary this year of the UAM-Santander aid program for the mobility of young researchers. Both researchers have stressed that the programs from which they are beneficiaries represent “a great opportunity” to advance in the consolidation of their scientific careers.
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