IN3 Building to provide new facilities for ICFO
Agreement between the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Government of Barcelona, the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya and ICFO promotes knowledge and research in Catalonia
In an event that took place at the new campus of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) in the historic Can Jaumandreu building in central Barcelona, the Conseller for Research and Universities of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Hble Joaquim Nadal; the deputy mayor of Culture, Education, Science and Community of the Barcelona City Council, Jordi Martí; the director of ICFO, Lluís Torner, and the rector of the UOC, Josep A. Planell formally celebrated an agreement that promotes and facilitates knowledge and research in Catalonia. On one hand, the ceremony celebrated the consolidation of the UOC campus in Barcelona, and on the other hand, the expansion of ICFO’s facilities in the Mediterranean Technology Park in Castelldefels.
The UOC, which until recently occupied the building adjacent to ICFO CELLEX NEST, in addition to buildings around the city of Barcelona, has been granted use of the Can Jaumandreu building in the 22@ area of Barcelona allowing it to concentrate all academic, research and management activity on a singular campus in the city's technological and knowledge district.
The transfer of the UOC activities to the central Barcelona campus, facilitated by the Barcelona City Council, made it possible for the Generalitat of Catalunya to cede the former UOC building to ICFO, fulfilling the institute’s pressing need for space to develop strategic national and international projects it currently leads linked to quantum materials and photonic chips. Specifically, the new building is expected to house research programs associated to “Quantica – Mediterranean Valley of Science and Quantum Technologies” , “QPICS” about photonic chips, a Nanocharacterization Facility and TWIST - a unique international program in collaboration with researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, USA), the Max-Planck Society (Germany), and the Weizmann Institute (Israel), among other facilities and services the Institute will need during the next decade.
“Refurbishing the new building will take a while and will require serious funding - that we still do not have. However, we happily accept the challenge to raise it because the new facilities will be crucial to our central mission, namely offering better and better training through world class research opportunities to our talented PhD students and post-doctoral researchers”, comments ICFO director Lluis Torner.