Materials research in Spain
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Dr. Pedro Gomez-Romero has kindly offered the following explanation of Materials Research in Spain (in the box below). Pedro Gomez-Romero (b. Almansa, Spain) (B.S., M.S. Universidad de Valencia, Spain) (Ph.D. in Chemistry, Georgetown University, USA, 1987). He is presently a senior research scientist at the Materials Science Institute of Barcelona (CSIC), Spain, where he works in the field of hybrid nanocomposite materials, solid state chemistry and electrochemistry, especially on materials for rechargeable lithium batteries and fuel cells. |
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Generally speaking, government funding leaves much to be desired: Spain still spends less than 0.9% of our Gross National Product on R&D (about half the European average, one third that of USA, or Japan). A spate of new materials research centers were funded in the mid to late 1980s, but the socialist government cut funding during the economic downturn between 1993 and 1996. The present conservative right-wing government also prefers to spend its money elsewhere and not on science. It introduced a privatization program in its eagerness to reduce public deficit while presiding over an economic upturn. The program benefited major strategic industries like electrical utilities, who recently received a cash gift of $7.2bn for expenses they might incur in the transition to a free market! For comparison, ALL of Spanish expenses in research (public and private, basic and applied) at that time amounted to some $2.7bn.
Materials research is also developing at Spanish universities, albeit more slowly. There are several new research centers (e.g.Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de la Universidad de Valencia, ICMUV) and physicists and chemists are beginning to see the need to create Materials Research Departments. Still, it is more common that chemistry or physics departments offer separate PhD programs specializing in Materials Science. That is the case for instance at the Chemistry Department of the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona where most of my PhD students get their PhD degree in chemistry (supervised by a university professor mentorship). It is probably just a matter of time before new Materials Science Departments come into being. Basically, undergraduate courses assign Spanish-language texts, whereas graduate courses use English texts. I normally teach a specialized course on "Electrochemistry of Materials" using a couple of English-language books as reference - not really as textbooks. Researchers at CSIC centers such as mine are not obliged to teach graduate courses but are normally invited by the host university to do so in our field of expertise. We may also work with graduate students: CSIC researchers propose research projects, help students choose graduate school courses, direct research, read and correct thesis manuscripts, write and/or help them write their papers. But CSIC research institute are not degree-granting institutions, only universities are, so the students need the support and endorsement of a mentor, chosen among the university professors. |
How do the three issues of materials generic approach, linearity, and large-scale/diverse play out in Spain? The materials generic perspective seems to have won through. The older research centers are materials specific (glass, polymers, metals, and building materials, e.g. cement), and the newer types are not. But strikingly, these institutes are all government-funded, carrying the word science (and not engineering or technology) in their titles. This seems much closer to a linear model in which pure science is first carried out in isolation and subsequently applied. Thirdly, since there is no Spanish equivalent to the US military/industrial complex, what sectors of the Spanish economy would want to have research carried out from a materials-generic perspective? Spain is an economy that has accelerated recently (average annual GDP growth: 1990-1995: 1.3%; 1995-1999: 3.5%) with an especially quickly growing service sector. Spanish industry is of course much smaller than in the US, and many industries such as aerospace doesn't exist but there is for instance an automotive industry. (I have to admit this is a hand-waving answer, and it would be nice if someone more knowledgeable would have a say either in our general discussion group or simply by sending an e-mail.)
There is an interesting center-periphery aspect to the textbook situation. Large American publishers have issued translations of the best-selling materials research textbooks in Spanish (and Portuguese). Obviously, they are also targeting the larger Latin American market, but they are being used in Spain too. For example, McGraw-Hill's W. Smith, Fundamentos de la Ciencia e Ingenieria de Materiales, 1998, is being used at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. (There is a course page with a bibliography on the website.) Interestingly, the publishers are beginning to adapt the print textbooks to the possibilities of the web. The textbooks are being produced with the support of examples and exercise material on the website in mind. In the center-periphery dynamics, textbooks from the center are often differently used in the periphery. One might speculate that the freedom of the university teacher in a peripheral European country is being curtailed by having more and more of the teaching moved away from the face-to-face contact between peripheral student and peripheral teacher to a web-based contact between peripheral student and central publisher.
- Materials research in peripheral Europe - main page
- Some characteristics of US materials research
- EU policy on research, technology and development (with a view to materials research in peripheral Europe)
- Materials research in Spain
- Materials research in Portugal
- Materials research in Greece
- Materials research in Denmark
This page was written and last updated on 20 August 2002 by Arne Hessenbruch.
