Bilbao City Council, new partner of the Basque Centre for Applied Mathematics - BCAM

• Bilbao Council joins Ikerbasque, Innobasque, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Provincial Council of Bizkaia and Petronor Innovación S.L as a partner of the centre
• The aim of the incorporation is to promote collaborative projects for the promotion of innovation, attraction and retention of talent and disseminatio.  

Bilbao City Council has become a new partner of the Basque Centre for Applied Mathematics - BCAM, a BERC centre attached to the Basque Government's Department of Education. In this way it joins Ikerbasque, Innobasque, the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), the Provincial Council of Bizkaia and Petronor Innovación S.L. as partners.

This new addition to BCAM's Executive Committee aims to jointly promote projects to retain, attract and link talent to the city of Bilbao, as a driving force for progress and innovation, as well as to strengthen scientific dissemination activities in the urban environment. "The activity carried out at the centre is in line with the creation of an ecosystem linked to the mainstays of talent and innovation for the transformation process we are facing towards an urban model of intelligent development", says Juan Mari Aburto, Mayor of Bilbao.

Bilbao City Council and BCAM have a long history of collaboration in different areas ranging from dissemination to the joint proposal of research projects in the European space. In fact, BCAM has collaborated with BilbaoTIK from its Knowledge Transfer Unit in the analysis of data for the profiling of users of the Bilbao tram and is a partner of Innolab Bilbao (open innovation platform promoted by the Bilbao City Council). Within this framework, BCAM participates in the Bilbao Zero 2 Think Tank project, an innovation programme to address the new challenges of the city

As for future collaborations, in addition to promoting new actions in dissemination, innovation and attracting talent, the aim is to seek synergies to strengthen multidisciplinary and international research spaces such as TRANSMATH, the Cross-border Cooperation Laboratory - LTC in Applied Mathematics led by the UPV/EHU and BCAM together with the University of Bordeaux, which provides a framework of stability to collaborations between groups in the Basque Country and New Aquitaine.

This latest addition to the BCAM family comes after the centre has achieved for the third consecutive time the Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence accreditation, awarded by the State Research Agency.  

The Mayor of Bilbao expressed that "it is a source of pride for the city of Bilbao to have a centre like BCAM that is recognised for its excellence in research. I would like to congratulate and thank you for all this".

The event was attended by the Mayor of Bilbao, Mr. Juan Mari Aburto; the President of BCAM and Vice-Minister of Universities and Research, Mr. Adolfo Moráis; the Councillor for Economic Development, Commerce and Employment of the Bilbao City Council, Mr. Xabier Ochandiano; the scientific director of BCAM, Mr. Jose Antonio Lozano, the manager of BCAM, Ms. Lorea Gómez.  

About Basque Center for Applied Mathemtics - BCAM

The Basque Center for Applied Mathematics - BCAM is an international research centre in the field of Applied Mathematics and a centre promoted by the Department of Education of the Basque Government and part of the BERC network (Basque Excellence Research Centers). It was created in 2008 by the Basque Government through Ikerbasque. It also has the support of the UPV/EHU, the Provincial Council of Bizkaia, Innobasque and Petronor Innovacion. One of its main objectives is to put mathematics at the service of society through the transfer of knowledge, extending the results of its research to sectors such as biosciences, health, energy or advanced manufacturing, and working jointly with local and international institutions and companies.

It currently has a staff of more than 120 researchers of 25 nationalities working in diverse areas, from data science or computational mathematics to mathematical modelling. BCAM has been accredited three consecutive times as a "Severo Ochoa" centre of excellence by the Spanish State Research Agency, a distinction awarded to the best research institutions in the world in their field.