The director of IMDEA Agua underlined the achievements obtained since the foundation of the centre

The Regional Government of Madrid celebrated the fifteenth anniversary of the creation of the Madrid Institutes of Advanced Studies IMDEA during a ceremony held last Friday 25 at the headquarters in Real Casa de Correos. The directors, researchers and staff of the IMDEA Institutes attended the event in which the general director of Research and Technological Innovation, Ana Cremades, and the councillor of Education, Universities and Science, Enrique Ossorio, have participated.

During his speech, the director of IMDEA Agua, Dr Eloy García Calvo, acknowledged the support received from the regional government. “Contributing to human beings having access to good water quality must be the objective of a centre dedicated to the study of this fundamental resource," he pointed out. Along this, he recalled some of the achievements obtained since the founding of the institute, such as the regeneration of wastewater through innovative technologies without energy input; nature-based systems for contaminant degradation; the study of the impact of chemical and biological contaminants –such as bacteria resistant to antibiotics– or the negative effects associated with water scarcity.

Founded by the regional government in 2007, each of the seven IMDEA institutes focuses on strategic areas –water, food, energy, materials, nanoscience, networks and software– oriented towards the demands of the market and society. Since then, almost a hundred patents and more than 20 software developments have been registered. In addition, they have participated in the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme with 70 projects, 25 of which have been led by these Spanish centres.

The IMDEAs bring together more than 900 researchers, half of whom have doctorates in international centres and around 40 % come from other countries. In addition, more than 300 doctoral theses have been read and its professionals have published some 5,000 articles in international journals such as Nature, Science, Physical Review Letters or Scientific American. These papers have been cited more than 100,000 times by other researchers.