Yesterday, 2 February 2016, the secretary of state for R&D&I, Carmen Vela, delivered the 2015 ‘Severo Ochoa’ and ‘María de Maeztu’ accreditations, the highest institutional recognitions for scientific research in Spain granted by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through an international evaluation committee.

On 27 October, ‘María de Maeztu’ accreditation of excellence was granted to the research unit of the Department of Information and Communication Technologies (DTIC) directed by Pompeu Fabra University lecturer Xavier Binefa. The only university department that has achieved this distinction at this call and the only existing one in the field of engineering. Thanks to “María de Maetzu” accreditation, the DTIC will be granted funding of 500,000 euros per year for the next four years.

Data science, the epicentre of scientific and technological progress

Research into ICTs is the central element of the revolution being experienced by data science, since it provides the methodologies and technologies necessary for a large number of research areas and their corresponding applications. The DTIC is made up of a considerable number of research groups working on the extraction of knowledge associated with data science and this recognition is proof of its leadership at State level.

Xavier Serra, scientific director of the DTIC and head of the Music Technology research group (MTG), received the accreditation on behalf of the department. As Serra stated, “this accreditation involves two essential components, on the one hand actual accreditation, which recognises the Department’s research work and its potential, and on the other, it allows strengthening research and improving its impact with the funding it grants”.

And, he goes on, “in the field of ICT, a significant part of the most cutting-edge research focuses on the extraction of formal knowledge from the processing of large amounts of data. It is in this cross-cutting field of work that we will develop a series of strategic actions”.

Actions that result in an improvement of the university’s computing infrastructure, the funding of various research projects, at the same time as promoting help for lecturers to improve the impact of their research, from the academic and the technology transfer and social relevance points of view.

It is important that the research that is done in the public university should be as open and reproducible as possible, that is to say, that the results of the work carried out, including the data generated and the software developed, are available and can be easily reused by both the research community and society in general.

“With the strategic programme of the “María de Maeztu” we want to establish the DTIC as a national and international benchmark in research related to data science, emphasizing its reproducibility”, adds Xavier Binefa, department director.

UPF now has four accreditations of scientific excellence

With this new accreditation of excellence, four UPF research centres and units have now obtained one of the two awards granted by the Spanish State. At the previous announcement, the Department of Experimental and Health Sciences (DCEXS) obtained “María de Maeztu” accreditation. At the 2011 announcement, the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics (Barcelona GSE), and the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), affiliated centres with UPF participation, obtained “Severo Ochoa” accreditation of excellence. At this 2015 call, the Barcelona GSE has renewed its accreditation, which was collected by lecturer Teresa García Milà, director of the Barcelona GSE.