ICREA 2014 Academia Award Ceremony

The ICREA Academia Programme, which celebrates its seventh edition, aims to foster excellence in research among lecturers and researchers from Catalonia's public universities and to recruit top scientists for the Catalan R&D system, scientists capable of leading new research groups, strengthening existing groups, and setting up new lines of research.

On this edition, the UB is again the first university in number of researchers awarded and the institution that has attained more representation since the award was created.

UB award-winners are:

Laura Chaqués is professor of Political Science at the University of Barcelona and research fellow at the Institut Barcelona dʼEstudis Internacionals (IBEI). She is the director of the Spanish Policy Agendas Project, a research project aimed to analyse policy dynamics in Spain from transition to democracy to present in a comparative perspective. She has published three books: Policy dynamics in Spain (2014, together with A. Palau and F. Baumgartner), Redes de políticas públicas (CIS, 2004) and Estructura y política farmacéutica (CIS, 2002), as well as several articles in international prestigious academic journals. Her main research interests are the analysis of agenda dynamics in a comparative perspective paying especial attention to the role of the media, and interest groups, and the analysis of the quality of democracy in multilevel systems of governance.

Raúl Estévez, professor in the Department of Physiological Sciences II, is expert on the field of rare genetic diseases related to movement of chloride across membranes. He is also member of the Centre for Biomedical Network Research on Rare Diseases (CIBERER). His research activity is centred on ion transport across membranes, a key aspect in many physiological processes. From 2003, his research group researches the genetic basis of a human disease, the megalencephalic leucoencephalopathy with subcortical cysts (MLC), from a multidisciplinary approach that includes different techniques. He received the ICREA Academia Award in 2009.

Pere Ginès is professor in the Department of Medicine, chairman of the Liver Unit at the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, and researcher at IDIBAPS research group Pathophysiology and Treatment of Ascites and Altered Renal Function in Liver Cirrhosis. His scientific career has been mainly focused on the investigation of mechanisms of liver injury and pathogenesis and management of complications of cirrhosis. He is the author of more than 270 publications in high-ranked journals; he has given more than 400 lectures and he has been visiting lecturer at 44 universities. He has received international research awards and he was recently awarded the Lucie Bolte Prize.

Gabriel Gomila is professor in the Department of Electronics and researcher at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) where he heads the Research Group Nanoscale Bioelectrical Characterization. The final objective of his research is to unravel the electrical properties of biological matter (viruses, bacterial cells) with nanoscale spatial resolution, and design, based on them, new label-free biological characterization methods and new electronic biosensors.

Rosina Moreno is professor in the Department of Econometrics, Statistics and Spanish Economy and member of the Research Group Quantitative Regional Analysis (AQR-IREA). She is co-author of the books Knowledge externalities, innovation clusters and regional development (2007), Técnicas de evaluación económica en el campo sanitario (Publicacions i Edicions UB, 2004); and Técnicas econométricas para el tratamiento de datos espaciales: La econometría espacial (Publicacions i Edicions UB, 2000). She has published around twenty articles about infrastructure investment, regional development and urban economics in specialized journals.

Sergi Munné, professor in the Department of Plant Biology, is member of the Research Group Mechanisms of Resistance of Mediterranean Plants to Drought: Function of Reactive Oxygen Species, Antioxidants and Hormones. He is interested in the study of the mechanisms of photo-protection, the role of antioxidant and phytohormones in plant stress resistance and the strategies to cope with oxidative stress and senescence in plants by using different models (from Arabidopsis thaliana to different ornamental species).

Petia Ivanova Radeva is professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Analysis and director of the Barcelona Perceptual Computing Laboratory (BCNPCL) at the UB. She also heads the Head of the Medical Imaging Laboratory (MILab) of the Computer Vision Center. Her research is focused on the development of learning-based approaches for computer vision and image processing. She has published around three hundred articles and book chapters and supervised about forty PhD theses.

Eduardo Soriano, professor in the Department of Cell Biology and member of the Centre for Networked Biomedical Research on Neurodegenerative Diseases (CIBERNED), heads the Research Group Developmental Neurobiology and Neuroregeneration of the UB. One of the main goals of his research activity is to understand how key developmental genes play a fundamental role in neuronal plasticity in the adult brain, which is crucial for complex neural functions.

Francesc Villarroya is professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and director of the Institute of Biomedicine of the UB (IBUB). He is member of the Biomedical Research Networking Centres on Physiopathology of Obesity and Nutrition (CIBERobn) and heads the Research Group Genetics and Molecular Biology of Mitochondrial Proteins and Associated Pathologies. Currently, his research activity is particularly focused on the control of gene expression in mitochondrial proteins and the identification of the major molecular actors controlling energy metabolism and adiposity, and their relationship with diseases such as diabetes, obesity and lipodystroy.