The ICREA Academia Programme awarded 250,000 Euros to each of the prize winners

The Catalan government awarded two UdL researchers in the first edition of the ICREA Academia programme, which awards academic excellence in research and capacity for leadership. The prize winners were the lecturer in Food Science and Technology Olga Martín Belloso and the Chair in Art History Ximo Company. Each will receive 250,000 Euros in funding along a period of five years. Both received the award at the Palau de la Generalitat.

Olga Martín leads a research group in New Technologies as applied to Food Processing. Her research work centres on the development of safe and healthy food products through the application of new techniques, such as high-voltage electric field pulses. Ximo Company is Director the Modern Period Art Centre at UdL and leader of a research group in Art and Culture of the Modern Period. His multidisciplinary studies include Medieval and Modern European painting and incorporate techniques like infrared reflectography, X-rays, electronic microscopy and dendrochronology.

The ICREA Academia award implies the winning candidate’s primary dedication to research in a Catalan public university during the next five years and a yearly allowance of 25,000 Euros to each of the selected candidates. Moreover, the programme awards 20,000 Euros per year to the university to which the candidate is affiliated: this amount is to be mainly destined to financing the award winner’s research activities or hiring new staff who will allow the candidate to reduce his / her teaching workload. The university will also receive 5,000 more Euros per year for programme management expenses.

The Catalan government has awarded a total of 40 researchers from public universities in Catalonia working in the areas of Mathematics, Experimental Sciences, Humanities, Medicine and Life Sciences, Technology and Social Sciences. The ICREA Academia programme aims at motivating university teachers with an outstanding career in research and providing them with an incentive to stay in Catalonia.