“Importantly, it will also enable me to support young researchers in starting or continuing their scientific career, something that is usually not easy.”
This year, the ERC has awarded 325 researchers across the continent with Starting Grants to give the early phases of their careers a kick-start. As well as IBEC’s winner, the other five successful researchers in Catalonia are at the Centre de Recerca en Economia Internacional (CREI), the Fundació Institut Català de Recerca de l’Aigua (ICRA), Pompeu Fabra University, the UPC and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center.
“At IBEC we’ve had ten ERC research grants in our short history of as many years, six of them Starting Grants,” says director Josep Samitier. “This latest achievement on Javier’s part shows IBEC’s continued commitment to excellence in research, and specifically our commitment to helping young researchers establish their own group at IBEC, as a Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence.”
The laboratory space (103.81 m2) that Javier will occupy as of 2017 as the new junior group leader of the Biosensors for Bioengineering group has been made possible thanks to PO FEDER Catalunya 2014-2020, which funds spaces and equipment at the institute through the project “Adequació de nous espais de laboratoris i adquisició d’equipament scientfic per a laboratoris de l’Institut de Bioenginyeria de Catalunya de desenvolupament de tecnologies per la regenerativa y nanomedicina”.
