“The Severo Ochoa Award has allowed us to keep the talent which we would have lost”

Interview with LUIS TORNER

Director of the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO)

“The ICFO has fascinating challenges in nanomedicine and in applications of graphene”

The Institute of Photonic Sciences is a research and training centre for optical science and technology, in Catalonia. Among its research fields are optical telecommunications, techniques of remote detection, and quantum photonics. It was founded in 2002 by the Regional Government (Generalitat) of Catalonia and the Polytechnic University of Catalonia; and it has the Severo Ochoa Award for Excellence. Its director, Luis Torner, participated in the “100XCIENCIA” forum in order to make its work better known and to further its relations with the centres in Spain which have received the same award.

Torner explains that the Severo Ochoa has allowed them to “retain talent that we would have lost”. And as for his present and future challenges the Director of the IFCO states that “at institutional level our objective is to be able to obtain sufficient resources to maintain our centre in the front line; scientifically we have fascinating challenges in nanomedicine, applications of graphene, quantum technology, and advanced imaging for biology, among others”.

The “100XCIENCIA” forum was all about communicating and popularizing science. In these fields the Director of the IFCO points out that they are the leaders of the “Pan-European alliance ECOP (European Centres for Outreach in Photonics) and in the framework of this alliance we participate in several projects of outreach in a continental context”.

Coordination of interviews: Verónica Martín