Letter from the Director
Dear friends,
Thanks for browsing the 2013 ICIQ Scientific Report. I hope you find the information useful.
I would like to share with you my highlights of the year 2013.
From the point of view of the ICIQ family, some important changes took place. Our former administrative director, Dr. Margot Segura, decided to leave ICIQ after serving at the institute in different responsibilities since 2004. I would like to take this occasion to express my gratitude to Margot for her continued dedication.
The position of administrative director was subsequently taken by Dr. Lluís Solà, the former head of our strategic area. Again, I take this opportunity to thank Dr. Solà for accepting this responsibility.
2013 has also been a year that brought us good news regarding three ICIQ group leaders:
The Starting Career Programme (ICIQ-SCP) to incorporate young talented group leaders to help them start an independent research career was launched, and Dr. Alex Shafir was selected as the first GL of this programme.
Ruben Martin, one of the members of the former ICIQ Tenure Track Programme obtained Tenure in July 2013, and shortly after was appointed as ICREA Research Professor.
Moreover Antonio M. Echavarren was awarded with an ERC Advanced Grant to carry out the project “CATGOLD: Advancing Gold Catalysis”
Congratulation to all of them!
With respect to research achievements, the institute has continued to be very active, and some 140 scientific papers were published during the year. In May 2013, ICIQ publication number 1000 appeared, and the institute reached Hirsch index 80 in November.
Finally, two important events related to ICIQ research started in 2013. A collaboration with the CELLEX Foundation was started to create the ICIQ High Throughput Experimentation laboratory, and late in Autumn the institute presented his application to the Severo Ochoa Excellence award. You’ll find out the end of these two stories next year.
Best regards,
Miquel A. Pericàs