Today it was announced that the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) has been selected to go to the next phase of the programme Support for Centres and Units of Excellence Severo Ochoa from the Ministry of Science and Innovation.

The Severo Ochoa programme, which was first convened by the Ministry of Science and Innovation in April this year, will identify the top ten research centres of the country for scientific relevance, human resources and international competitiveness. The centres getting the sign of quality, which will be selected by a committee of international researchers and Nobel Prize winners, will receive one million euro per year for four years, preferential access to scientific facilities and flexibility in the recruitment of researchers.

Twenty-two centres doing research in a wide range of disciplines out of a total of 75 that submitted the programme have been chosen to move to the next stage. Catalonia has the best results in search compared to the rest of autonomous communities, and has 12 centres among the 22 finalists. "Reaching this stage is a tremendous achievement," says Joseph Planell, Director of IBEC. "IBEC is one of the 22 best evaluated research institutes in Spain and one of the ten best centres working in physics and engineering."

In addition to the generous financial support that can be used however the ten selected schools choice, the recognition of the Severo Ochoa programme would also bring along the accreditation ‘Centre / Unit of Excellence Severo Ochoa’, given to the selected preferential visibility in obtaining other competitive funding from the Ministry. In the next stage of the process, the IBEC must present a research programme that "contribute to the development of strategic abilities for research and to strengthen the international exposure through the quality of its scientific production,” besides a human resources strategy and a monitoring and evaluation plan to describe the objectives proposed by the four-year accreditation.

"Having made it so far in the selection process is a major achievement and a testimony of our constant efforts and the quality of the achievements of the IBEC," says Professor Planell. "It does not matter how the Severo Ochoa programme finishes, the result today can only be used to strengthen and reinforce the belief in our mission to continuously develop our strategy of scientific research to create knowledge and so benefit society."