The Institute of Physics of Cantabria celebrates 30 years

Santander.– The Institute of Physics of Cantabria (IFCA) celebrates its 30th anniversary as a world reference center that has managed to position itself at the forefront in its field from the periphery and now faces the challenge of continuing to grow. The president of Cantabria, María José Sáenz de Buruaga, has opened the anniversary events with a visit to the facilities of this center jointly owned by the University of Cantabria (UC) and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). According to Buruaga, the IFCA has become “a lever” for the transformation of the productive model of the autonomous community and has demonstrated that “a small region can have a huge impact when betting on knowledge and advanced technological development”. The institute – has highlighted – was a pioneer in artificial intelligence when no one was talking about it, participated in the discovery of the Higgs Boson and leads the Arrakhis mission of the European Space Agency to understand the nature of dark matter. He has contributed to improving radiotherapy treatments against cancer and is working on the development of proton therapy at the Valdecilla hospital, whose construction will be completed in less than a year, the president of Cantabria has announced. “We are going to continue to support IFCA, promoting all the progress we can because your challenges are those of the society of Cantabria,” the president assured during her visit. As pointed out by the rector of the UC, Conchi López, one of her challenges is to get new spaces because its success is leading it to grow and the facilities on the university campus have become too small.

As explained, he has already met with the president of the CSIC, Eloísa del Pino, to address this need and will work together with the Government of Cantabria and the City Council of Santander with the same objective. The rector has also emphasized that, in addition to being an international reference center, the IFCA is committed to scientific dissemination with multiple initiatives that, in her opinion, “are a clear example that science must be shared and brought closer to those outside the laboratories”. «Without society there is no significant science and without shared science there is no lasting progress», he has underlined. The IFCA has just launched a cryogenics laboratory, a technology that allows them to reproduce the same temperature of deep space, -273 degrees, absolute zero, in their research. The director of the IFCA, Patricio Vielva, the delegate of the CSIC, Celso Martínez, the Minister of Education, Sergio Silva, and the councilwoman for Employment and Entrepreneurship of Santander, Isabel Gómez-Barreda, have also been on the visit. The IFCA will hold the central event of its anniversary next Wednesday, December 17, in which it will review its 30 years of history with the help of its protagonists and will dedicate a special remembrance to the researchers Luis Pesquera and Teresa Rodrigo.