Professor Luis Vega receives the RSME Medal 2023

• The Spanish Royal Mathematical Society (RSME) has recognised the work of the UPV/EHU professor and BCAM researcher for his work and contributions to the field of mathematics

Luis Vega González, professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of the Basque Country and coordinator of the Analysis of Partial Differential Equations area and principal investigator of the Severo Ochoa accreditation of the Basque Centre for Applied Mathematics (BCAM), has been awarded the RSME Medal 2023 together with María del Carmen Romero Fuster, professor at the University of Valencia and Francisco José Marcellán Español, professor at the Carlos III University. 

The RSME Medal is a distinction with which the scientific society expresses the public recognition of the Spanish mathematical community to people who have stood out for "their relevant and continuous contributions in mathematical fields over the years, such as education, research, transfer and dissemination, among others".

The jury's proposal was unanimously agreed and its president pointed out the very high quality of all the candidates. Vega González's contribution to the RSME has been "essential and has contributed to its strengthening in numerous aspects". He was a member of its Governing Board for 7 years and vice-president from 2009 to 2012. He was also a member of the jury for the "José Luis Rubio de Francia" Research Award in the period 2003-2007. 
"It is a great honour for the institution that gives it and also because in a way it is a recognition from your colleagues. It was an initiative that was not mine, so it was a very pleasant surprise," said Luis Vega. It was Antonio Campillo, who counted on the participation of the researcher Luis Vega, when he was elected president and the professor emphasises that "it was a very interesting period and it is a satisfaction to think that I have collaborated in a small part of the success of the RSME". In Vega's words, "the RSME is an institution with a consolidated dynamic thanks to the barely visible and often selfless work of many of its members". 

As for his research career and professional achievements, he is "proud of the journey itself. It has been, and still is, a journey, I would say an exciting one, shared with many colleagues and my family. Without them, none of the merits I have received would have been possible," says the professor. 
For Luis Vega, research in mathematics is one of the basic pillars on which anyone's education should be built. For Vega, "mathematics provides a description, from my point of view hardly comparable, of the laws that govern the functioning of nature, whether they are precise, such as those that usually appear in the physical sciences, or more diffuse, such as those that occur in biological or social phenomena". He adds that "mathematics has to respond to the problems posed by its own development, creating new techniques and discovering unknown universes. The very existence of the latter has often been unthinkable for past generations.

The aim of research in Spain is to be of excellence and with international projection. For Luis Vega, "we are at a good moment for research and several generations have had an international impact. Much remains to be done to consolidate this impact, and this can only be achieved with hard work, always being as close to the research frontier as possible". 

Luis Vega González (Madrid, 1960) graduated in Mathematics from the Complutense University of Madrid in 1982. He received his PhD in 1988 from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM) and after a two-year stay at the University of Chicago he joined the UAM. In 1993 he joined the University of the Basque Country, where he has been Professor of Mathematical Analysis since 1995.

Professor Vega is currently the principal investigator of the Severo Ochoa accreditation at BCAM (Basque Center for Applied Mathematics) and a world-renowned expert in partial differential equations and Fourier analysis. He has been vice-president of the Spanish Royal Mathematical Society (RSME) and member of the Spanish Society of Applied Mathematics (SEMA), and is currently an officer of the International Council of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM). He is also a member of the Royal Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences, the European Academy of Sciences and the Academia Europaea.

In his extensive career, Prof. Vega has been awarded for his research work on several occasions: in 2012 he received the Euskadi Research Award and Fellow of the American Mathematical Society (Inagural Class), and in 2015 he received the Blaise Pascal Medal in Mathematics.

He has also led the HADE project (Harmonic Analysis and Differential Equations: new challenges) funded by the European Research Council.