Talència, new organization for the promotion of research in Catalonia, has a budget of 70 million Euros for 2010

The Catalan minister of Innovation, Universities and Enterprise, Josep Huguet, has presented this evening the new institution of the Catalan Government, Talència. It agglutinates the whole set of funding measures in research and scientific talent attraction in Catalonia. Until now, it was shared among the Agency for Management of University and Research Grants (AGAUR), the Catalan Foundation for Research and Innovation (FCRI) and the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA). The act has taken place at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC).

This new organization is managed by the economist Albert Castellanos and is fruit of the National Pact for Research and Innovation (PNRI). It is formed by 70 professionals.

For this year 2010, Talència will have a budget of 69.4 million Euros, which will be allocated to training and talent attraction (45.4 million), to promote research projects (10.6 million), and to improve its economic and social impact (8.9 million Euros). One of the most important milestones in 2013 is to manage funding for one of every four doctorates and post doctorate researchers requesting public helps to develop their career. Today, approximately one of every ten researchers receives support.

From this year on, the new organization will work to promote the participation of Catalonia in the EU Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). In order to achieve it, there will be an increase of the lines of support to the participation and leadership of European projects. There will be specific calls to receive projects participated by companies (ACC1Ó) and other for those coming from the university area (Talència). The objective is to reach a return of 2% respect to the 1, 8 % attained in last editions.

Another action foreseen to increase the impact of research in eventual production, one of the main PNRI objectives, is the collaboration with ACC1Ó in a transversal program of valuation of research and commercialization of the technological offer produced in Catalonia (exploitation of patents, generation of spin-offs, etc), in order to go from 25 companies of university origin created in 2009 to 40 this year.

During 2010 new training program for research management with the hope they will be standardized and validated by Catalan universities.