With the addition of IBEC, the BIST community now comprises 2,347 people, including 147 group leaders, 565 postdocs and 588 predoctoral students. 40% of them are of international origin, and 43% are women.
“The exciting and committed BIST community now grows in capacity and potential with the incorporation of a new centre of excellence,” said outgoing BIST director general Miquel A. Pericàs, director of the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ). “We’d made only a few first steps so far, but they’ve been firm and in the right direction.”
Held today at BIST’s new headquarters at the Escola Industrial, the meeting also featured an exhaustive report by Pericàs of the work carried out during the first 12 months of BIST’s existence. In turn Andreu Mas-Colell, president of the Board of Trustees, congratulated BIST on the two projects funded by the EU’s Marie Skłodowska-Curie Co-fund call, which will fund 28 scholarships for predocs and 61 postdoctoral fellowships over the next five years. He also highlighted the agreement with the Diputació de Barcelona that has allowed BIST to relocate to its new headquarters at the Escola Industrial.
The meeting of the board also introduced new BIST director general Gabriel M. Silberman, previously Vice President and Scientific Director of the company Cerebri AI and assistant professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering of the University of Texas, and approved the incorporation of a new scientific member to the board, Professor M. Carme Calderer from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, who currently teaches at the University of Minnesota in Twin Cities.
BIST’s Board of Trustees is made up of researchers (Ignacio Cirac, Max-Planck-Institute for Quantum Optics; Joan Massagué, Sloan Kettering Institute; Miquel Salmeron, University of California-Berkeley; Sergi Verdú, Princeton University; Sylvia Daunert, Nanotech Institute of the University of Miami; and Rolf Tarrach, European University Association); the directors of the BIST centers (Luís Serrano, CRG; Miquel Àngel Pericàs, ICIQ; Pablo Ordejón, ICN2; Lluís Torner, ICFO; Ramon Miquel, IFAE; Joan Josep Guinovart; IRB Barcelona and, from today, Josep Samitier, IBEC); representatives from five private foundations (Fundació Bancària la Caixa, Banc Sabadell Foundation; Fundació FemCat; Fundació Cellex; Fundació Catalunya-La Pedrera), and the Conseller d’Empresa i Coneixement, Jordi Baiget, on behalf of the Generalitat de Catalunya.
