The King has traveled to Santander to endorse with his presence the activities of the ‘Princess of Girona CongresFest’ in the fourth stage of the 2024 Talent Tour, which includes talks, discussions and live music and where the winner of the Princess of Girona Award has been announced. Girona Research this year, an award that went to Moisés Expósito Alonso, evolutionary ecologist, plant biologist and geneticist.
Moisés Expósito, a researcher from Alicante and professor of change biology at the University of California and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (United States), focuses his research on trying to understand if species are going to evolve at a genetic level in the face of climate change and, if they do not, what can be done to predict and prevent their extinction. After being proclaimed, Expósito, visibly moved, told the young people present that they must “think locally and act globally.”
The proclamation of the Princess of Girona Research Award 2024 has closed the central event of the fourth stop of the Talent Tour 2024, which was held at the Santander Exhibition and Congress Palace. In addition to the King, the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, attended; the president of the Government of Cantabria, María José Sáenz de Buruaga; the Government delegate, Eugenia Gómez de Diego; the president of the regional Parliament, María José González Revuelta; the mayor of Santander, Gema Igual, the president of the Princess of Girona Foundation, Francisco Belil, and the director of the Foundation, Salvador Tasqué, among other authorities.
The 2024 Talent Tour has been taking place in Santander since Monday and will last until Sunday, April 28, bringing together between 3,000 and 5,000 young people. This is the fourth stop of this tour, after those held every month, since January, in Lleida, Salamanca and Cádiz, which seeks to promote professional opportunities and improve the employability and well-being of young people.
The Princess of Girona Research Award recognizes the career of young scientists and researchers, including those working in the field of human and social sciences, with outstanding experiences or research projects in their discipline and who possess an entrepreneurial and innovative spirit with a high potential for future development.
80 candidates were nominated for the award, among which were finalists Ricard Alert Zenón (Barcelona, ??1989), physicist and researcher; Cristina Mayor-Ruiz (Soria, 1989), doctor in molecular biomedicine and cancer researcher; Bartomeu Montserrat Sánchez (Balearic Islands, 1989), professor of Materials Physics and researcher; Katherine VillaGómez (Armenia, Colombia. 1986), doctor in physical chemistry and researcher, and Moisés Expósito Alonso (Alicante, 1990), evolutionary ecologist, plant biologist and geneticist, who finally won.
The central part of the event has revolved around how high sports performance methodologies can contribute to improving people’s lives and physical and emotional well-being. The talk was given by Toni Nadal, professional tennis coach – among whom, at the time, was his nephew Rafa Nadal -, and María Antonia Lizárraga, doctor specializing in Physical Education and Sports Medicine .
A round table has also been held on the commitment to research in science and technology with the winners of the Princess of Girona Foundation in the Research category Marc Schneeberger Pané (2023), Silvia Osuna Oliveras (2016) and Samuel Sánchez Ordóñez (2015 ).
The Princesa de Girona CongresFest, in Santander, has included a musical performance by Juanlu de la Rosa, an artist from the ‘Art Generation’ program of the Princess of Girona Foundation, an initiative that aims to promote a new generation of young artists capable of promoting the emotional well-being in classrooms through music.
Upon his arrival in Santander, the King went to the Botín Center in Santander – which the Kings inaugurated seven years ago – to attend the session ‘Boost your creativity through art’. This activity is part of the ‘Princess of Girona Foundation Expedition to the Botín Center’ activity, in which around twenty young people from the entity have participated, determined to discover how emotional and creative abilities can be enhanced through art.
The one in Santander is the fourth stop of the Talent Tour that began its journey in Lleida, on January 19, and continued in Salamanca on February 20 and on March 20 in Cádiz. On the first two occasions, Queen Letizia was the in charge of representing Princess Leonor, a role that, this Thursday and at the Cádiz stop, has fallen to the King. In Lleida, the CreaEmpresa award was proclaimed, awarded to the architect Antonio Espinosa de los Monteros; In Salamanca, the actress Victoria Luengo was chosen as the Art prize and in Cádiz, the architect Daniel Millor was proclaimed the Social prize. Next May 7, the Talent Tour will stop in Madrid and during the celebration of the Congrest Fest the Princess of Girona International award will be made public. The awards ceremony will take place in the summer in an undetermined location in the province of Girona with the attendance of the Kings, Princess Leonor and Infanta Sofía.
