The Government of Spain will finance for four years a total of 374 research contracts in public centers with the objective of enhancing the application of Artificial Intelligence and digital transformation to science and research. The staff, who have already signed their contracts, will carry out their work in four public centres benefiting from the ‘Generation D’ programme: Building Generation IA’.
The Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Function and the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, have today presented the program, to which Red.es provides an investment of 120 million euros. The beneficiaries of the program are postdoctoral (43%), predoctoral (17%) and technical (41%) profiles. The presentation ceremony was attended by the Minister for Digital Transformation and Public Function, Óscar López, and the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Universities, Juan Cruz Cigudosa.
“There is no digital transformation possible without ambitious digital training. In microelectronics, in cybersecurity, in Artificial Intelligence. With the European funds of the Recovery Plan, the Government has trained in digital skills one million teachers, 26,000 public employees, 2,800 SME managers and 3,200 cybersecurity professionals. The participants of Generation D will develop high research capabilities in applied AI, with impact in sectors as diverse as biomedicine, microelectronics, marine sciences or nanoscience,” said Minister Óscar López in his speech. For López, it is especially “remarkable that about 40% of the contracts have been signed by women who will inspire the next generations of STEM.”
For his part, the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Universities, Juan Cruz Cigudosa, assured that today, with Generation D, “Spain adds and builds digital talent, especially talent in Artificial Intelligence, the most disruptive technology of our time, which can promote scientific and innovative progress in ways that we cannot even imagine”, and explained that these are “advances that can lead us to the highest levels of progress and well-being, if we lead AI responsibly and put it at the service of the society to which we owe ourselves”.
More than 200 lines of research
During the meeting, the applications of AI in science were shared, as well as some of the main lines of research, among the more than 200 that the project has, with the help of the researchers themselves, who shared their experiences and perspectives on how the program promotes their professional development and technological innovation in Spain.
Framed in eight main themes, the research projects cover areas such as biomedicine, pharmacology, agriculture, astronomy, oceanography, nanoscience, robotics, cardiovascular, education or genomics, among others.
The four entities selected to implement the program, under the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, are the Higher Council of Scientific Research (CSIC), the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), the Carlos III National Cardiovascular Research Center (CNIC) and the National Cancer Research Center (CNIO).
The investigations are carried out from work centers of the four entities, distributed in 29 provinces in the 17 autonomous communities.
More than 36% of these research contracts are occupied by women, reaching 50% in the CNIO and CNIC centres. In addition, 25% of the research staff has come from other countries, including countries outside the European Union.
Red.es, attached to the Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Function, through the Secretary of State for Digitization and Artificial Intelligence, is in charge of promoting this initiative that also includes a training plan equivalent to 240 ECTS credits.
This programme is funded by the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, through the Next Generation funds of the European Union, within investment 4 of component 19
