The delegate of the Government of Spain in Cantabria, Eugenia Gómez de Diego, highlighted on Tuesday the commitment of the Central Executive to promote science and innovation during her intervention in the working day that brings together in the Palacio de La Magdalena de Santander the management teams of the Higher Council of Scientific Research (CSIC), the largest public research agency in Spain and the seventh public research institution in the world.
Gómez de Diego welcomed the more than 180 CSIC officials from all over Spain, Rome and Brussels, and expressly thanked the president of the organization, Eloye del Pino, for choosing Santander as the venue for this meeting. He highlighted that "Cantabria is a strategic bet of the CSIC", with three centers of recognized international prestige, which have the collaboration of the University of Cantabria: the Institute of Physics of Cantabria (IFCA), the Institute of Biomedicine and Biotechnology (IBBTEC) and the Oceanographic Center of Santander of the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (COST-IEO), where about 200 people work in about 60 national and international scientific projects.
The delegate has valued the "fund-raising capacity", the "interdisciplinary leadership" and the "effort in technology transfer" of the Cantabrian centers, which "have been consolidated as referents in areas as diverse and strategic as particle physics, cosmology, biomedicine, advanced biotechnology and marine sciences".
In addition, he has claimed the role of knowledge as "the basis of human progress". In his speech, he warned of the rise of anti-scientific discourses, both from the extreme right — with negationist positions on climate change — and from alternative movements that reject child vaccination, and insisted that "science is essential for making public decisions based on evidence."
"We need you more than ever," said Gómez de Diego, who stressed that the government delegation in Cantabria "is to be useful to the scientific community," and assured that "you have the support of the Government of Spain, which is making an unprecedented commitment to science."
The day is part of one of the two annual meetings held by the CSIC with its management teams. Its celebration in Santander is a recognition of the region’s role as a strategic enclave in the national system of science and innovation. The active presence of the CSIC in Cantabria, recently reinforced with the creation of the Institutional Delegation of the agency in the community, has helped to consolidate the region as a reference in areas such as particle physics, biotechnology or marine sciences.