RAICEX Roundtable

Saturday 8th, 11:00

The Network of Associations of Spanish Researchers and Scientists Abroad (RAICEX) was formed in 2018 in response to the growing need to unite and represent under a common framework the community of Spanish researchers abroad. Our aim is to transmit and share the expertise and knowledge acquired by working in a global scientific context where international collaborations are essential. There are currently 20 member associations registered in different countries throughout five continents and in this session we will explore the journey to get here. We will discuss the success of this association, the impact it has in Spain and the direct actions taken together with the main institutions and stakeholders in our home country. As all members of SRUK/CERU are part of RAICEX, which today represents more than 4,100 Spanish scientists and researchers abroad, we will discuss the achievements made by working together. You can read more about SRUK/CERU contributions as part of RAICEX on SRUK/CERU’s webpage.

Participants in the roundtable: 

  • Francisco Vilaplana (current president of RAICEX).
  • Javier Escudero (former president of SRUK/CERU and first president of RAICEX).
  • Guillermo Pérez (president of CERFA).
  • Mónica Vara (president of CEBE).

Facilitator: Carmen Sánchez Cañizares

Biographies:

Francisco Vilaplana:

Francisco Vilaplana is a Chemical Engineer from the Polytechnical University of Valencia (UPV) and holds a PhD in Polymer Technology from both UPV and KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. After two postdoctoral stays in The Netherlands and Australia he moved back to Sweden in 2011, where he currently develops his research activities both in the academic and private sectors. He is Full Professor and Head of the Division of Glycoscience at KTH, where he leads a research group on plant biochemistry and biotechnology, focused on the structural understanding of plant cell walls and their valorisation into plant-based products for biomaterial and nutritional applications. He is founding Director of KTH FOOD – a multidisciplinary research centre for a sustainable food system. At the same time, since 2022 he is part-time principal scientist at Oatly, where he is establishing a research program on plant structure and health. He has published over 110 scientific publications and is currently the Chair of the panel “Chemical Engineering, Bioprocess Technology and Environmental Technology” at the Swedish Research Council. He is the President of the Association of Spanish Researchers in Sweden (ACES) and the President of the Network of Spanish Researchers Abroad (RAICEX).

Javier Escudero:

Javier Escudero leads a research group creating data science algorithms for the personalised monitoring of disease in the School of Engineering of the University of Edinburgh (UK). He received the MEng and PhD degrees in telecommunications engineering from the University of Valladolid (Spain) in 2005 and 2010, respectively. Afterwards, he held a Postdoctoral position at Plymouth University (UK) until 2013, when he joined The University of Edinburgh. Javier is author of over 90 scientific journal articles. His research has been awarded national and international prizes. He was elected into the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s Young Academy of Scotland in August 2016. Javier served in the Board of Directors of SRUK from March 2015 to June 2019, and was its president from July 2018 to 2019, when he has the first president of RAICEx as well.

Guillermo Perez:

Guillermo was born in Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Canary Islands) where he studied Chemistry. After arriving in Berlin in 2004 as a one-year Erasmus student, a doctorate in Quantum Chemistry followed (2010), then research in the field of computational biology (Freie Universität Berlin, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center NYC). He specializes in numerical simulation and analysis of membrane proteins, working at the intersection between statistics, software development and basic biomedical research, and is currently based at the Institute of Medical Physics and Biophysics of Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin. He is a founding member (2013) of the the Spanish Society of Researchers in Germany (CERFA), where he has held different managing roles and is currently serving as president. He is also a board member of the Network of Spanish Researchers Abroad (RAICEX) holding the position of treasurer.

Mónica Vara:

Born and raised in Zamora, Mónica is a Biotechnologist from the University of Salamanca and holds a masters degree in Molecular Medicine from the Erasmus University (The Netherlands) and a PhD in Biomedical sciences from the KU Leuven (Belgium). As a postdoctoral researcher at VIB-VUB (Belgium), she studies the changes on the brain immune compartment in deleterious conditions, such as stress or cancer. Advocating for science communication, she is currently managing director of the Belgian branch of the international festival Pint of Science. She has been a member of CEBE since 2018, serving as its president since 2022.

Facilitator: Carmen Sánchez Cañizares

Carmen Sánchez Cañizares is an agronomist and the main focus of her research is a process called Biological Nitrogen Fixation, which only certain microbes can carry out in order to convert atmospheric nitrogen into a biochemically usable form for the plants, mimicking the effect of chemical fertilisers. She is currently working in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Oxford as a postdoctoral researcher in the rhizosphere laboratory, studying the regulatory networks that control the metabolism of these bacteria in order to understand the molecular mechanisms responsible for the establishment of an efficient symbiosis with legume plants, what will lead to sustainable crop yields. During her time in Oxford, she has been a lecturer in Biological Sciences at The Queen’s College and participated regularly in several outreach activities. She is actively involved in SRUK/CERU, currently as a member of the working group in Oxford and the Science Policy department. She is the former Director of Institutional Relations, former director of the Oxford constituency, and former vice-president and president of SRUK/CERU.