The Leonardo Scholarships have fun a decade with greater than 600 tasks by researchers and cultural creators | Science | EUROtoday

Basic and social sciences, artwork and music have acquired help from Leonardo Scholarships for a decade. The BBVA Foundation program seeks to advertise the work of researchers and cultural creators who’re characterised by an revolutionary scientific, technological or cultural profession at a key second of their careers, between the ages of 30 and 45. Since its creation in 2014, this system has supported greater than 600 tasks with 22.5 million euros. The beneficiaries throughout this decade gathered this Monday on the Teatro Real in Madrid to have fun the tenth anniversary in an occasion led by Carlos Torres Vila, president of the Foundation, and Rafael Pardo, its director.

The scholarships are named in honor of the “creative and innovative spirit” of Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), the good polymath who mixed creation and science, exploiting the fervour for data and the worth of creativeness. Under this inspiration, the help covers a variety of areas that features primary sciences; biology and biomedicine; environmental and earth sciences; engineering; laptop science and information science; social Sciences; humanities; plastic arts; music and opera; and literary creation and performing arts.

The profile of a 'Leonardo' is that of a researcher between 30 and 45 years outdated, with expertise in world-renowned facilities and establishments, who in a big proportion haven’t achieved job stability. Therefore, this system provides flexibility within the planning, execution and last presentation of the tasks in a spread that ranges from 12 to 18 months. During work they will additionally combine establishments or collaborators. Thus, they change into administrators or managers of their tasks.

The success of scholarships

Pilar Martín is a biologist and professor of Immunology on the Cardiovascular Research Center. When she was chosen for the fellowship in 2016, she devoted her mission to creating a biomarker to diagnose acute myocarditis and, above all, distinguish it from acute myocardial infarction and thus speed up applicable therapy. “In the laboratory we worked with animals, but the scholarship allowed me to collaborate with hospitals and start analyzing patients,” she explains. Currently, Martín's workforce is conducting a scientific trial to validate using her invention. It has funding of three million euros and the participation of 61 hospitals from throughout the National Health System and greater than three thousand sufferers. “It is important to be aware of how basic science discoveries can make improvements in society,” she provides.

Among the scholarship recipients within the technological subject is Santiago Mazuelas. In 2018 he obtained the Leonardo scholarship in Information and Communication Technologies and devoted his mission to designing programs through which machines may be taught from information of varied varieties. “We can't blindly trust the data, but we can adapt the data to changing scenarios,” he explains of his analysis. The researcher acknowledges that the largest problem inside his subject is competitiveness within the face of the rise of synthetic intelligence, which is why the scholarship has helped him considerably. For Mazuelas, the assistance “goes beyond money,” since being a part of the community has additionally nourished him personally. “It's fantastic to feel like a member of this community,” he notes.

Within engineering, the profile of José Miguel Adam Martínez, professor on the Polytechnic University of Valencia, who obtained the scholarship in 2017, stands out. His work focuses on stopping the collapse of vital buildings, comparable to hospitals or colleges, when an earthquake happens. , a hearth or a terrorist assault. “These events have a low probability of occurring, but when they do occur it is very serious,” explains Adam. And he provides: “I try to avoid that when there is an error in one part of a building, it spreads to the rest as a domino effect.” Before getting into this system, he explains, he did very utilized science, however later he was in a position to broaden his analysis to extra elementary avenues. “Thanks to this scholarship I was able to set up the current team with 15 people hired from eight different countries and it allowed me to obtain a scholarship funded by the European Research Council of two and a half million euros,” he provides.

During the assembly, the outcomes of a survey on the influence of the scholarships on the skilled trajectories of the beneficiaries had been additionally offered. They had been questioned, with a scale of 0 to 10, about how their expertise with the scholarship has contributed in elements comparable to job promotion (7.6), publication of articles in scientific journals (7.9), administration of a gaggle of analysis (7) and the event of cultural creation tasks (8.1).

Torres Vila has highlighted the significance of financing expertise by banking establishments: “Today, more than ever, we must invest in the future by supporting professionals with an innovative, curious, exploratory and learning attitude, who serve as inspiration for future scientists and artists, as well as a guide for decision-making by all citizens.” The assembly additionally included the participation of members of the Network, leaders of the analysis commissions and representatives of scientific and cultural organizations.

10 years after the primary version, the Leonardo Scholarships have materialized in 630 scientific articles, almost 150 books, greater than 800 displays at nationwide and worldwide conferences, 9 patents and 130 inventive works, amongst different inventive expressions comparable to movies, musical compositions and concert events.

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