Five UAB lecturers awarded ICREA Acadèmia grants
A total of 30 lecturers from universities across Catalonia, five of whom lecture at the UAB, have been selected for the 13th edition of ICREA Acadèmia grants, awarded by the Catalan Institute of Advanced Research and Studies (ICREA).
The UAB researchers awarded the grants are Carme Font, fom the Department of English and German; Lorena Chanes, from the Department of Clinical and Health Psychology; Maria Saña, from the Department of Prehistory; Roser Granero, from the Department of Psychobiology and Methodology of Health Sciences; and Rubén López Vales, del Department of Cellular Biology, Physiology and Immunology.
With these grants, the Ministry for Research and Universities of the Government of Catalonia gives support to the research tasks of lecturers developing their activities in some of Catalonia's public universities, with the aim of improving the impact of university research on the population in general.
The 30 lecturers selected for the 2021 call for ICREA Acadèmia grants will jointly receive 40,000 euros per year, for a period of five years. These grants are aimed exclusively at university lecturers who teach and are also fully active and in the expansion phase of their research activities.
Consolidated and highly effective programme
With this new edition of grants, the number of ICREA Acadèmia grants rises to 359 for public universities which benefit from the framework of a government programme which awards some 6 million euros annually.
The impact indicators of the ICREA Acadèmia programme, which began in 2008, reflect an excellent performance: when compared to the rest of lecturers of the university system there is over a 60% rise in competitive research funding obtained and a more than 18% rise in the relative citation ratio per journal. Moreover, the number of institutions funding the research conducted by ICREA Acadèmia grantholders rises by more than 30%.
To be eligible for an ICREA Acadèmia grant, one must be a full-time lecturer or researcher (Personal Docent o Investigador) at one of the public universities in Catalonia, as well as hold a PhD and give classes regularly.
ICREA is a foundation with funding from the Government of Catalonia and its objective is to incorporate top scientists and academics into Catalonia's university and research systems through new forms of hiring. It works in coordination with Catalonia's universities and research centres with the aim of increasing the competitiveness of the country's knowledge system by integrating top-level researchers from abroad.