Historian Joaquim Nadal, Councilor for Research and Universities, reflects that “in the 19th century Catalonia was Spain’s factory; in the 20th century it had tourism and an industry in decay; and the Catalonia of the future will have significant weight in the world if it is able to turn science and knowledge into the industry of the 21st century”.
What is the most important limiting factor for research in Catalonia?
I am convinced that there is no limiting factor and that, if funding was one, we are overcoming it.
The researcher Joan Massagué says that “researchers’ salaries in Catalonia are extremely low compared to those of the countries they are trying to emulate”.
30% of the researchers at the Cerca centers [research centers of the Generalitat] are foreigners. We export talent, but we capture talent. Probably the salary of the researchers as a whole has to jump. But it cannot do it if it is not proportionate to what university professors also do.
R&D spending in Catalonia is 1.67% of GDP, the EU average is 2.3%. These are data from 2021, the latest published.
In 2022, we have reached 1.116 million euros in R&D. It places us at 0.8% of GDP in contribution from the Generalitat. We are getting closer to the 1% provided for by the Science law and the National Pact for the Knowledge Society. We closed in 2023 and continue to grow.
Counting all the contributions, how much will we get?
Adding public and private sector, close to 2% by 2023.
Should we aspire to be the Girona of science and do it very well with a small budget?
I have the aspiration to do very well, as we are doing now with an insufficient budget, but knowing that budgets in science and knowledge must grow. The contradiction between results and funding lasts one or two years, but not five.
There are concerns that, instead of growing, funding will fall again when European Next Generation funds run out.
It will not decrease because the Government of the Generalitat will compensate it in the budget. There must be no setbacks in the funding of research or the university system. Growth will be sustained and sustainable.
Physicist Lluís Torner, at the conference held by the Economic Circle, defended “the search for frontiers as a driver of development for a society like ours”.
We will get on the train of quantum technologies. We are committed to turning the ICFO [Institute of Photonic Sciences] even more into a center of reference and the commitment to increase the investments of the Vall de la Quàntica program.
Other countries are getting on the bandwagon with lots of resources. Can you specify what the investment will be here?
I prefer not to. Not yet.
What other areas of frontier research should be prioritized?
I would say everything that is the world of biomedicine and bioengineering. Advanced therapies, also supercomputing, synchrotron beamlines…
I don’t see anything really disruptive, they are paths already drawn.
Before inventing anything new, it’s better to consolidate what we already have, right? I would like to be more disruptive.
Has Catalonia made more progress in research than in innovation?
Clearly We are already to a large extent a first-rate country in basic research, not in transfer or innovation. The Catalonia of the future will have significant weight in the world if it is able to turn science and knowledge into the industry of the 21st century. It is something that is very much on the president’s mind.
Solutions?
We are solving it through the strategic transfer and innovation plan that we are developing based on the Law of Science. The researcher who creates a spin-off must notice that it does not become an obstacle, but an opportunity. And the economic results of the spin-offs must return to the parent centers from which they were born.
Do you share the opinion that bureaucracy should be reduced so that researchers can devote themselves more to research?
The most limiting knot, not only of research, but of economic growth in Catalonia, are the bureaucratic obstacles. A person who wants to open a shop, or who wants to create a cogeneration plant, has as many or more difficulties than a researcher. The difficulties are not inherent in the research system. They are inherent in the overlapping of European, Spanish, Catalan and local regulations, which has ended up becoming a cobweb that we all have an obligation to disentangle.
What is the department doing to resolve this?
Everything we save for researchers from management jobs will be for the benefit of more efficient science. The researcher must find that the system protects him. We are opening ways, for example, to incorporate staff specialized in fundraising into universities. The Law of Science establishes that the research system must have a specific treatment. This means that it does not apply, like a corset, to a regulatory framework that is specific to the pure public sector.
