Change in the presidency of SOMMa: Maria A. Blasco substitutes Luis Serrano
- During the three years that Luis Serrano has been president of SOMMa, together with vice presidents Maria A. Blasco and Mª José Sanz, the alliance has deployed an intense activity in science policy, establishing bridges with numerous entities of the political and scientific world.
- “Our country has research institutes and researchers that are among the best of the word, this needs to be valued and boosted by our governors, not only financing science at a level suited to an ambitious country but also easing the excessive administrative burden that thwarts the retention and contracting of international talent”, highlights the new president.
- Serrano steps down from the presidency after intensive efforts put in science policy, calling once more for R+D+I to become a priority for the country.
16 December 2020. After three years as president of the Severo Ochoa – María de Maeztu Alliance, Luis Serrano, director of the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) ends his term and steps down from the presidency. The new president will be Maria Blasco, director of the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), and until now first vice president of SOMMa. The new president has expressed her will to “carry on working for the recognition of Spanish science as one of the political and economic priorities of this country”. Blasco will be accompanied by SOMMa vice presidents Mª José Sanz, director of the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3), and Antonio Molina, director of the Centre for Plant Biotechnology and Genomics (CBGP-UPM-INIA).
The Severo Ochoa and María de Maeztu Alliance, SOMMa, gathers over 50 top Spanish research institutions with over 8,500 researchers, was launched officially from the CRG on October the 18th, 2017, with the support of then-Secretary of State of Research of the Ministry of Economy, Carmen Vela, as an initiative to visualize the Spanish science with the Severo Ochoa and María de Maeztu mentions of excellence of the Spanish State Plan for R+D+I.
The Severo Ochoa and María de Maeztu mentions are the highest institutional recognition to scientific research in Spain. Their awardees, selected by an international evaluation committee, cover practically all areas of knowledge, from physics and mathematics to environmental sciences and biomedicine, as well as humanities. A reflection of the excellence of SOMMa centres and units is the fact that they are also those institutions that occupy the first positions in international scientific rankings.
The law for public contracts of 2017, Ley 9/2017, raised the alarms of the Spanish research community. This marked the start of an intensive task in a scientific policy of SOMMa, which managed to make of the alliance an actor to be taken into account in the Spanish scientific scene. The exchanges between the directive teams of alliance members provided ample perspective and new connections with numerous scientific societies, associations of researchers and companies active in R+D+I. With them, the alliance has launched and participated in numerous actions and positioned itself publicly in defence of science.
