The Instituto de Nanociencia y Materiales de Aragón (INMA), winner of the Premio Aragón Investiga
The Instituto de Nanociencia y Materiales de Aragón (INMA), mixed institute of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) and the Universidad de Zaragoza (UNIZAR), has been awarded in the 11th edition of the Aragón Investiga Awards with the Fidel Pagés prize to entities for their work in research, innovation and knowledge transfer in Aragon.
These Awards, created in 2004, aim to publicly recognise contributions to basic or applied research, as well as to support research and knowledge transfer carried out by public and private entities. The awards gala took place on Tuesday 9 November in the auditorium of the CaixaFórum and was chaired by the Councillor for Science, University and Knowledge Society, Maru Díaz.
The INMA was created in July 2020 as a result of the merger of two research institutes, with a competitive and consolidated trajectory: the Institute of Materials Science of Aragon (ICMA) and the Institute of Nanoscience of Aragon (INA), both pioneers in Materials Science and Nanoscience and Nanotechnology in Spain.
With more than 35 years of experience in materials research by ICMA, and almost 18 years of expertise in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology by INA, INMA researchers have achieved today a strong internationally recognised leadership in their specific fields of interest. Taking into account the previous intertwined background in several areas of knowledge such as Chemistry, Physics, Engineering and Biotechnology, INMA researchers now have an ambitious common goal: to be a key player in the national and international landscape of advanced materials and nanotechnology.
The R&D&I activities are based on the multidisciplinary character of INMA, which includes expertise in Materials Theory, Synthesis of molecular and supramolecular materials, polymer chemistry, photonics, magnetism, superconductivity, quantum technologies, additive manufacturing, biotechnology, electronics and Nanotechnology. Basic and applied research is carried out by attracting resources mainly from national and international public funded programmes (just over €2 M per year), but also through collaborations with industry (approximately €1 M on average per year). In addition, INMA has a very strong relationship with unique research infrastructures such as the Advanced Microscopy Laboratory (LMA) at UNIZAR, whose Director and the three heads of areas are reference researchers at INMA; and with large national and international infrastructures such as neutron sources and synchrotron radiation, where INMA researchers participate in the development of unique instruments for the characterisation of materials. Excellence in these research activities is reflected in the record of publications and citations in high quality peer-reviewed journals: 305 articles in 2020, with 83% published in Q1 journals (56% in D1 journals), and an average of 20 citations per article to date. In addition, INMA has received €792,335 in royalty income from licensed patents, and has created 1 spin-off company.
Furthermore, INMA’s international visibility is reflected in its growing leadership and participation in European projects (48 FP7 / H2020 projects and 7 active ERANET type projects, leading 40% of them). Especially relevant is INMA’s performance in the H2020 “Excellence Pillar”, with 2 completed and 4 currently active European Research Council (ERC) projects, 8 active Future Emerging Technologies (FET) projects (3 led by INMA) and more than 20 Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA), including 4 active networks led by INMA. In addition, INMA researchers are collaborating with leading scientific groups worldwide, having access to unique infrastructural techniques.
In addition, INMA were also awarded the professor emeritus of the Department of English and German Studies at the University of Zaragoza, Susana Onega Jaén, in the category Miguel Servet Award for Excellence; the researcher Isidro Cortés Ciriano, of the European Bioinformatics Institute, in the category William Bragg Award for Young Researchers, the Aragonese company Certest Biotec and Dr. Lucia Carmen Perez, in the special categories of covid and research with a gender perspective, categories that were released this year.
