Catalonia, third in EU scientific excellence rankings

Catalan government university and research secretary antoni castellà yesterday announced that in order to make catalonia southern europe’s leading knowledge hub, the territory would draft its own new law on science to project the highest level of excellence research.

based on the number of projects of excellence funded by the european research council, on a per capita basis, catalonia would currently stand in third place in the ranking of scientific excellence in the eu, behind only the netherlands and sweden. "now is the moment to offer a legal umbrella to our research model,” in catalonia, the secretary added, “as here we have a different set up to the rest of spain and therefore we require a different kind of law to ensure it is looked after properly.” a catalan science law would give full reign to managing research centres, which would in turn mean that their competitiveness would not be undermined by red tape, nor central government interference.

a future catalan science bill would also provide a legal framework to protect the icrea program, which has brought over 200 top researchers to catalonia on competitive contracts over the last ten years.

castellà and martorell announced the measures to drive research in catalonia at a time when major cutbacks are on the horizon for budgets which spain was due to earmark for r+d+i. castellà summed up by saying, “we believe it is a mistake not to give the utmost priority to research at this time.”

source: la vanguardia, 27/3/2012