The Spanish Research Council (CSIC)

On 11 January 1907 the Council for the Extension of Studies and Scientific Research (“Junta para Ampliación de Estudios e Investigaciones Científicas”), or JAE's was created by a ministerial decree. The aim of this new body, which inherited the principles of an independent teaching institution, was to end Spain’s isolation and forge links with European science and culture. It also had the mission of training the staff responsible for implementing the reforms needed in the sphere of science, culture and education. Thus, the effort to reform and regenerate the country became a national undertaking independent of political vicissitudes and in which intellectuals of various ideologies were involved.

Today the CSIC is the largest public research body in Spain. With centres throughout Spain, we play an active role in the scientific policy of all the country's autonomous regions. As a multidisciplinary body we cover all fields of knowledge, from basic research through to advanced technological development. The CSIC is subdivided into eight science and technology areas:

1) Humanities and Social Sciences

2) Biology and Biomedicine

3) Natural Resources

4) Agricultural Sciences

5) Physical Sciences and Technologies

6) Chemical Sciences and Technologies

7) Materials Sciences and Technology

8) Food Science and Technology

Our Institute belongs to the area of Chemical Sciences and Technologies.

Doctors, biologists, chemists, historians, philologists... men and women of science and the arts who were trained at the institutions created by the JAE and who were given the task of implementing the programme to breathe new life into Spanish science and culture. Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Ignacio Bolívar, José Castillejo, Luis Simarro, Juan Negrín, Pío del Río-Hortega, Antonio de Zulueta, Severo Ochoa, Julio Rey Pastor, Francisco Durán i Reinals, Blas Cabrera, Leonardo Torres Quevedo, José Casares Gil, José Fernández-Nonídez, Cruz Gallastegui, Federico de Onís, Ramón Menéndez Pidal, María de Maeztu, Tomás Navarro Tomás, Américo Castro, Antonio García Solalinde, Samuel Gili Gaya, Rafael Altamira,... are just some of the people who took part in this enterprise.