“Spain is a breeding ground for talent, and we have to believe that”

The six winners of the 2023 Rei Jaume I Prizes,Antonio Echavarren Pablos (Basic Research), Olympia Bover Hidiroglu (Economics), Guillermina López-Bendito (Biomedical Research), Carlota Escutia Dotti (Environmental Protection), Daniel Maspoch Comamala (New Technologies) and Alfonso Jiménez Rodríguez-Vila (Entrepreneur) have outlined – first to the media and this afternoon to business leaders, the academic community and the general public – the respective lines of research for which they have been honoured with this award.

A common thread ran through their various speeches: the call for better opportunities for young talent and the criticism that their job security does not extend beyond the age of 45

Basic Research, Economics and Biomedical Research

The winner of the 2023 Rei Jaume I Prize for Basic Research, Antonio Echavarren, holds a PhD in Chemistry from the Autonomous University of Madrid and is Professor of Organic Chemistry at the Autonomous University of Madrid (since 1992, on leave of absence since 2021). He is also a CSIC research professor (on leave of absence since 2004) and Group Leader at the Catalan Institute of Chemical Research (ICIQ).  

In his view, “We can make an effort to try to communicate what we do. Chemistry provides a great deal of employment; it is the country’s most important industry. In Tarragona, chemistry is everywhere, producing substances that are beneficial to humankind. We work with gold, which is the final frontier of catalysis; but although it had been reported that there was nothing of interest in the chemistry of gold, it is fantastic for doing many things – it is like a noble metal acid. It is special – the yellow colour is a rarity; there is no other metal like it.”  

For Echavarren, “we still believe that new things can be achieved that haven’t been done before. There are theoretical predictions we want to test in our team, such as the idea that gold can react with methane, even to the point of producing petrol.” He also defended his work in the laboratory, saying, “It is very important, because we are training people at the frontier of knowledge, and that is our main output. We have trained more than 200 people, many of whom are now part of the workforce. That is our main achievement, beyond the discoveries themselves, and it justifies the need for Basic Research,” he added.

“All the major problems facing humanity (energy, pollution) are directly or indirectly linked to chemistry. And southern Europe is one of the most important regions for science. In chemistry, we rank seventh worldwide in terms of citations.”

Meanwhile, in the field of economics, Olympia Bover, PhD in Economics and Head of the Department of Structural Analysis, was awarded the 2023 Economics Prize by the jury for her contributions through significant empirical studies of the labour and housing markets and household behaviour. As she explained this morning, “I focus mainly on three things: I produce microeconomic data on individuals and households, I develop methods, and I use the results of this analysis to try to improve the design of economic policies. And one thing that is often overlooked—which sets them apart and enables them to provide answers—is technical knowledge and its application to problems of interest.”

Methods for analysing panel data bring us closer to experimentation and enable us to identify causal relationships at the individual level. The survey’s design has been replicated in other countries; we have thousands of researchers using this data, and it has had an impact on the redistribution of wealth in Spain that was previously unknown. The appropriate use of the data is never obvious, because it is not always readily available; rather, you have to adapt it.”

With regard to inflation, one thing we did was to examine what inflation actually looks like according to household type. Inflation reflects the cost of the shopping basket. What emerges is that, for lower-income households, food and energy account for a much larger proportion of expenditure, meaning that low-income households are bearing the brunt of inflation to a far greater extent. Another example is that when interest rates began to rise, our survey provided detailed information on all loans, including interest rates, the amount of debt and household income, so we were able to… we were able to see the percentage of households that were now spending more than 40 per cent of their income on these costs. In accordance with the provisions of the Code of Good Practice, we were able to assess how this Code could mitigate the situation, as we are familiar with the structure of the debt. So we produced a report on the whole situation and on how the measures set out in the Code of Good Practice could alleviate the impact.

Guillermina López-Bendito holds a PhD in Neuroscience and is a research professor at the CSIC, at the Institute of Neurosciences (CSIC-UMH), and winner of the 2023 Rei Jaume I Prize for Biomedical Research. She states that, “Each of us has 80 million neurons, and we are trying to understand how these neurons are created, how they function and how they connect with one another. Because the master organ of our body is our brain, and we still have a great deal to learn. The mechanisms of our brains are very similar to one another, and even to those of some animals. Every day I am more and more amazed when we discover something new about these networks of neurons.”

Guillermina has stated that “among the challenges facing neuroscience, a very large proportion of my laboratory’s work is dedicated to processing sensory information; all this information is captured by the sensory receptors until it reaches our brain, where it is processed. There are many laboratories around the world, but what fascinates us is understanding how they formed from the embryo. How they organised themselves in relation to one another as a prediction of what will happen next. It is endlessly fascinating because those neurons that are forming, positioning themselves and connecting with their counterparts do so without sensory information; this tells us that the brain has a tremendous capacity for self-organisation, and the mechanisms it uses to connect remain a mystery. We are working on studying three aspects: how information is sent from the periphery, reaches the thalamus, and connects its way to the cortex.” “The thalamus,” he continued, “emits signals during its development that cause these neurons to connect.” In other words, they communicate through a sort of symphony, and this is very important because they play a role in plasticity. That is the second point: plasticity is understood as the brain’s capacity to adapt to change, but this capacity is much greater during the early pre- and post-natal stages. Understanding this window and modifying it opens the door to developing tools for the future. And if we want to repair the brain, – he emphasised – or treat neurological disorders, we need to know how it works. It is essential that the public understands that we recognise the despair caused by these conditions, but we are doing everything we can to understand the brain. Conditions such as autism and schizophrenia have their origins in neurodevelopment; something went wrong during those stages.

And the third point concerns the way neurons communicate; there is a pattern to it, and we need to decipher what that pattern is in order to predict the future. In our eagerness to provide answers, we are trying to offer alternative solutions, such as cellular reprogramming. We have been able to convert glial cells and astrocytes into sensory neurons. This is very important because when we lose a sensory function, we need to restore those neurons.”

Guillermina has sent a message to young researchers: “I want to emphasise this point because we really must believe it: Spain is a breeding ground for talent. We have a culture of motivation, hard work and self-improvement, and it’s in our very DNA. This is a message for young researchers: it really is possible; there are tools that can enable us to reach our full potential.

Environmental Protection, New Technologies and Entrepreneur

The 2023 Rei Jaume I Prize for the Environment, Carlota Escutia Dotti,  PhD in Marine Sciences, was honoured with this award for her pioneering contributions to our understanding of changing environmental conditions in the Arctic ice sheets, the Southern Ocean and their biota, and their impact on the global climate system. Her research: “We make predictions by looking back in time to prevent climate change. The study is usually carried out using data from instruments. The changes we are currently experiencing – in terms of temperatures and greenhouse gases – mean we are reaching conditions that our planet has not experienced for a very long time. So we are trying to look back in time to see what the past tells us about the variability of Earth’s climate. The Earth has experienced much warmer periods, but it is also true that humans were not around at that time. We must bear in mind that our activities are geared towards a climate system that we have enjoyed up to now, over the last 12,000 years, and that is what has allowed us to develop, through many transformations, whilst increasing our population and using resources at an unsustainable rate. And that is a cause for concern. What we do is look back in time, and there are many climate records from the past that can provide us with information. Tree rings can provide information, particularly regarding droughts, etc. Stalactites do too, and one of the best sources of evidence is the Antarctic ice, which shows that over the last 800,000 years the planet had not experienced such high concentrations of greenhouse gases. The only records are the sediments and rocks from much further back in time, beneath the seabed, and these tend to provide a more continuous, better-preserved record of the planet’s climate history. We’ve been working in Antarctica for over 20 years, and the area is vast. We’re piecing together a jigsaw puzzle, and we’re gradually uncovering the pieces. Of all that work, one particular study is highly significant because it has influenced science policy; it involved going much further back in time—we had to dig deeper into the seabed— and here we go back 55 million years, and we saw that it was an era with greenhouse gas levels of 1,000 parts per million. So Antarctica had palm trees and there wasn’t even any ice, which means that the rest of the planet was practically ‘overheated’. Until now, the Antarctic ice has been very stable, but it is now beginning to melt, and that is what drives us to understand what consequences this will have for ocean circulation. And we have confirmed that the ice is vulnerable to climate change. It is important to know how much sea levels will rise. Take Venice, for example: the more accurate our predictions are, the better we can adjust our projections to mitigate the effects of climate change.

We don’t have a crystal ball, but today, more than ever, we know so much about what might happen to us in the future; we know what’s coming our way. And some of the events that were considered risks five years ago are now happening – we’re experiencing them – and sooner than had been predicted. There are three options: to be sceptical, to be alarmist, or to recognise that whatever we do to reduce greenhouse gases – as individuals, as a society, as businesses, or as governments – however small it may be, will help to slow down global warming. It is a responsibility.

We have an obligation not only to train, but also to educate and promote scientific literacy in order to raise awareness amongst children, but also amongst educators.

The research of Daniel Maspoch Comamala, who holds a PhD in Materials Science from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, focuses on advances in nanotechnology and chemistry for the design and development of porous reticular materials and drug delivery systems for various applications. “My vocation for technology transfer came about by chance. When I returned from the US, we made a discovery in fundamental science and patented it; a company expressed an interest, and we realised the genuine need that companies have for scientists to develop their products. We began working with them. And some of the products we have developed are the result of that.

His tenacity and resilience in developing his business venture, coupled with a tireless pursuit of innovation within the food sector, are some of the values recognised by the jury of the 2023 Entrepreneur Prize for Alfonso Jiménez Rodríguez-Vila. As he explained, “I was an entrepreneur from a very young age – at 18. Starting out by battling against adversity made me do something very different and helped me survive. And over the past 32 years, I’ve always fought against the odds; it’s about surviving whatever came my way, and that applies to research as well. All my life I’ve dedicated myself to making ready meals, which are now very much in vogue. Just as we were at the peak of our success in every respect, a major fire broke out on 20 January 2023. In 45 minutes, I watched 32 years’ worth of dreams go up in smoke. Everything was burnt to the ground, but something very important remained: the people and their ideas. And this year, in just nine months, we’ve rebuilt everything from scratch, ready to grow and triple our current output.

“What concerns us most as business owners is talent – people – and that is what we need to develop the company. But we need people; we have factories, machinery and a market, but it’s the people that matter.”

Everyone, unanimously, has called for us to try to find a recruitment approach that provides stability for our young people, who are only really settling down by the age of 45 – a situation that ultimately disadvantages women, for example. Stability and salaries.

Sponsors

These awards are sponsored by the Iberdrola Spain Foundation for Environmental Protection; Valencia City Council for New Technologies; Air Liquide Healthcare and CaixaBank for Biomedical Research; and Mercadona, Edem and AVE for the Entrepreneur Prize. In addition, organisations such as the Port Authority of Valencia, Boluda Corporación Marítima, the Council of Chambers of the Comunidad Valenciana, the Banco Santander Foundation, Pavasal, RNB, SPB, the Vectalia Group, CEV, the Provincial Council of Valencia, Logifruit, the Torrecid Foundation, BP, Empresas del Sol, the Alicante Provincial Council, the Segura-Balpa Group, as well as receiving institutional backing from the Generalitat Valenciana.

Following the discussion, they visited the CAC’s facilities: