Eloísa del Pino, CSIC's president, visits ICMM and talks with the staff

The president has visited the facilities at ICMM and has told the scientific, technical, and administrative staff about her progress in negotiations with the Ministries of Science and Finance.

The president of the CSIC, Eloísa del Pino, was this Thursday, February 23, at the Institute of Materials Science in Madrid. In a visit in which she first met the management team and then the staff of the center, the president detailed how her plans are going at the head of the institution.

Del Pino was accompanied by the Vice President of Organization and Institutional Relations, Carlos Closa; the general secretary of the CSIC, Ignacio Gutiérrez; the advisory member of the president, Isabel Varela, and the institutional delegate of the CSIC in Madrid, Marina Villegas. After her meeting with the center's director, José Ángel Martín Gago, the deputy director Pilar Aranda, and the manager, Iván Cosio, she went to the assembly hall, where she had the opportunity to chat with a large part of the technical, research, and administrative staff.

"We have a lot of collapse in management," acknowledged the president, who has detailed the four main objectives of the management contract she is working on. "It is an election year, that is good," acknowledged Del Pino, who has been "not pessimistic, but skeptical" about the achievements that will be achieved by signing the contract.

In accordance with her plan, she wants to improve the management of the institution, an objective that inevitably involves administrative simplification (one of the main requests of all CSIC staff), but also improve computer systems: "We receive about 20 attacks a day", acknowledged Del Pino, who asked to be "very careful" and pointed out that this is a "very serious problem" because, for example, the institution has only two developers and it has 90 internal applications. "We have requested 10 million euros from the Ministry of Science and they have promised to give it to us," she added

Talking about management, she has also recognized that immediate action is needed and has promised that there will be more positions "to strengthen central management and centers". Also she ensured that there will be greater incentives for the administrative staff, who in many cases are overwhelmed by the workload.

The president also spoke about the CSIC's infrastructure, another of the most delicate points, since "of the 591 buildings, there are some in a very serious situation", which implies significant monetary spending "that is not dedicated to science". "For example, the electricity bill has multiplied by five, the situation is serious and the budgets have not improved in recent years," she lamented, still indicating that they are in good harmony with the Ministry of Science and that they are already negotiating with Finance Minister.

As a second objective, Del Pino has cited the improvement of governance within the institution, recognizing that there are internal councils that do not have communication between them and putting on the need to improve the conviction between the platforms and connections with the institutes, as well as its sources of financing. In this regard, it has announced a forthcoming call for the research groups themselves to propose new inter-center connections.

Staff is, by force, one of the most important points in the CSIC's action plan. Del Pino has been satisfied with a "generous call" for places corresponding to 2022 and has announced that this year there will be another call for places related to 2023. However, she has also recognized the "cap" that exists in internal promotion but has made it clear that there is a "real commitment" to the scientific staff and their research career.

There is "a serious problem" with technical staff, the president also said, lamenting the low ratio, below what it was before the 2010 crisis, also acknowledging that this staff has "fewer opportunities for a scientific career". This, in her opinion, derives "from dynamics from years ago that it is difficult to fix". However, she has announced the start-up of the Technologists position, with a call for less than a hundred places, of which the majority will be for the CSIC, with the aim that technical professionals can see their careers grow."It is important to give technicians more career possibilities," she insisted.

"We are proving attractive," Del Pino congratulated when talking about the fact that the number of research staff arriving at the CSIC has doubled thanks to contracts such as the Ramón y Cajal. Even so, there is still a problem with the pre-doctoral contracts, which is why it has been reported that they are trying to recover the JAEPreDoc scholarships, something "difficult" and "expensive" but "necessary" so that the number of Ph.D. at the CSIC does not fall. In addition, she has also announced a foreign mobility program for thesis students.

The fourth objective of the CSIC is to increase its institutional, scientific, and social relevance. "If we are not there when decisions are made, some are made that do not favor us," acknowledged Del Pino, who was optimistic on this point because, she repeated, "the Ministry of Science is very receptive." "We are not going to get everything, but a lot," she launched. In this way, since his presidency, they have been working on different internationalization programs both in Europe and on other continents, as well as programs related to the transfer of scientific knowledge to society and companies. "We encourage everyone to apply, it is essential," the president encouraged.

The talk ended up falling short, with many questions in the pipeline from researchers present at the event, among whom were last year's winners Pilar López Sancho, Andrés Castellanos, and Ricardo García, whom she also personally congratulated. Most of the staff who have taken the word have insisted on the points already mentioned: the need to sign the agreement as soon as possible, speed up the hiring processes, lighten the bureaucratic part, and that the positions offered are not as generic as up to now. Requests that the president has taken note of and on which she has promised to work.

After this meeting, she went to some of the center's most cutting-edge laboratories, among with are the group's 2D Foundry, ESISNA y Mambio, where she was able to see first-hand what the staff of this center work on, which stands out for being one of the most multidisciplinary and the largest in the area in Spain.

-- Ángela R. Bonachera (ICMM Communication Unit) & Lorenzo Plana (Photo CSIC) --