Welcome to the ICMAB Annual Report 2019!
This annual report completes the 4th year of our Severo Ochoa Center of Excellence “Smart FUNctional MATerials for social grand challenges” (FUNMAT). At present, we already know that we have been selected to continue with this excellence label for four more years, up to 2023 on the basis of a renewed program “Smart FUNctional materials for a better FUTURE” (FUNFUTURE). We feel extremely satisfied for this renewal which confirms that we have been successful in addressing the challenging objectives of FUNMAT.
Now we are well positioned to face the increasing international competitiveness of the R&D activities. Functional materials are actually the “hardware” of most advanced technologies (EU identifies them in 80 % of new products). The expectations of the energy transition, the digital revolution and the personalized smart medicine rely on robust, sustainable and efficient advanced materials. Generating new knowledge to impact on the Sustainable Development Goals identified by the United Nations, and so on the well-being of our society, is the final goal of our R&D activities.
FUNMAT established ambitious scientific goals aiming to have impact in critical societal challenges (clean and secure energy, smart electronics and nanomedicine). Both, our Scientific Advisory Board and the Severo Ochoa evaluators agreed that we have generated cutting edge materials science developments within the strong international environment of ICMAB. Our achievements have been facilitated also by an efficient organizational model and fostered by the enthusiasm and interdisciplinary profile of ICMABers.
One of the most relevant priorities of our FUNMAT project was to foster the attraction and retention of new talent. We are very happy of the quantum leap made at ICMAB concerning the increase of the manpower. In 2019 we have reached 153 (145 scientists) more people since starting FUNMAT (2016), i.e. 125 % increase of non-permanent people, reaching a total of 365. We had in 2019 a total of 157 PhD fellows (51 % of them from abroad, from 30 different countries), 79 postdoctoral researchers (58 % of them from abroad) and 108 undergraduate and master students elapsed more than 2 months at ICMAB. During the Severo Ochoa period we have also assured 10 new permanent scientist positions reaching a total of 63. Recruiting of support permanent staff, instead, has been much more scarce and so the support of the Severo Ochoa action has been essential to strengthen their essential duties. The overall gender balance of ICMABers is fairly good (>40 % women at all levels), although further efforts to improve it are being made.
The new laboratory and office spaces in the MATGAS building and the optimization of those at the ICMAB building have been critical issues in achieving such an outstanding growth. In terms of improving our scientific equipment platforms (SEPs) we are very happy of having completed a renewal of the low temperature and magnetometry unit, including a new Helium production unit and a very high magnetic field magnet. Also the approval of a multi-institutional Catalan Advanced Transmission Electron Microscopy facility, to be installed at the synchrotron ALBA, a long sought facility that will assure our international competitiveness in this field. This new facility will complement the strong use of ICMABers of many national and international facilities, such as synchrotrons (ALBA, ESRF, Soleil), neutron sources (ILL), supercomputing centers and electron microscopy facilities.
A high competitiveness in R&D funds attraction is one of our strengths. The total budget for 2019 was similar to 2017 and 2018 (14,9 M€), consolidating a 34 % growth since starting FUNMAT thanks to a ~62 % competitive funding. The extraordinary growth on R&D activities and people at ICMAB was strongly linked to our high success in attracting ERC grants (11 up to now, among the highest of research centers in Spain) and other EU projects, totaling 39 projects alive in 2019 (58 % of project funding).
The scientific production of ICMAB researchers continues to be outstanding, of high quality and diverse, in accordance with the multidisciplinary profile of our center. A total of 240 articles were published in 2019, reaching an average impact factor of the journals of 6.07, and 10 % of the articles were published in journals with IF>10. As an indicator of our outstanding impact, we should also mention that ICMAB has kept for the second year the highest position of CSIC Nature Index per researcher and the second position in absolute value. We continue also to increase the total number of citations (> 164.000 at the end of 2019 from 5.383 publications and > 14.400 citations per year). The international character of our R&D activities is stressed by the fact that 69 % of our publications involve scientists from 59 countries.
You will find in the report a full list of the publications distributed by Research Lines, as well as a selection of scientific highlights corresponding to outstanding publications. Our scientific activity is mainly performed in the scope of the “Matter” CSIC area, although we have also key contributions to the “Life” CSIC area. We should note here that an analysis of the scientific production of ICMAB vs CSIC, performed on the framework of the initiative “White book of CSIC research”, has shown that we occupy the first position on the topics of RL1 (Sustainable energy conversion and storage systems), RL2 (Superconductors for power applications) and RL4 (Molecular electronics), the second position on RL3 (Oxide electronics) and the eighth in RL5 (Multifunctional nanostructured biomaterials), where we are the first center in materials science in this topic strongly linked to biomedicine.
The rich and diverse topics where ICMABers have made scientific impact during 2019 are reflected in the selected highlights included in this report spanning Materials Science, Chemistry, Physics and Engineering contributions.
First of all, you will appreciate the extraordinary versatility of ICMABers in generating new materials based on chemical or physical approaches. Thermoelectric paper grown by bacteria are used to generate electricity; colloidal quantum dots are created for solar cells through nanoimprinting or adapted to bioimaging; tailored inorganic and hybrid material architectures with controlled interfaces are prepared for electrochemical storage; inorganic and metallic nanoparticles have allowed to prepare nanocomposites making better superconductors, biocompatible theranostic agents, plant healing tapes; ultrathin oxide or oxynitride films and heterostructures prepared through different methodologies lead to transparent conductors, quantum wells exhibiting superconductivity or topological protected electronic states with useful magnetooptic response, ferroelectric capacitors compatible with Si, resistive switching non-volatile memories based on ferroelectrics or semimetallic oxides, large area superconducting flexible metallic tapes; organic molecules are generated for optoelectronic and electronic applications (transistors, sensors, switches, memories, quantum objects), flexible organic films are created as elements for large area devices; carbon nanotubes and graphene or other 2D materials are tailored for theranostic applications, cancer therapy, energy storage, electronic devices; porous materials and surfaces are treated to make them compatible with cell growth.
Generating cutting edge knowledge about the materials structure and functionality is another key objective of the researchers at ICMAB, as a prerequisite for engineering advances. Understanding the role of interfaces or electron-phonon coupling in perovskite photovoltaic cells or demonstrating that they do not display ferroelectricity are issues that have been handled. Modelling a novel generation of phononic devices has established the grounds for designing novel materials and devices while a novel efficient quantum-mechanical formalism to model nonhomogenous external perturbations of solids have been developed which will help to understand flexoelectricity, for instance. Identifying the role played by oxygen and atomic or nanoscale defects in cuprate superconducting films or nanowires are key problems requiring advanced analysis in order to use them in large scale, accelerator or electronic applications. The photoresponse of oxide quantum wells is investigated due to its potential to emulate the synaptic plasticity of neurobiological systems. The role of nanostrain in epitaxial oxide multilayers is scrutinized by synchrotron and Electron Microscopy to disentangle the origin of complex ferroelectric, ferromagnetic, multiferroic or superconducting behaviors and its relationship with the growth method. The interfacial molecular behavior of biopolymers (nanocellulose) and proteins interacting with membranes has been clarified through supercomputing simulation. Enhanced and guided cell migration have been demonstrated in decorated surfaces which become a promising platform for regenerative medicine and tissue engineering.
Finally, a comprehensive view of the acquired expertise of the ICMAB researchers is achieved through the written reviews that you will find in the report. They cover, for instance, an oxide electronics roadmap, the promise of Calcium-based batteries, the potential of organic transistors or the use of 2D materials for energy storage.
One of the great success of FUNMAT has been the outstanding increase in the ICMAB outreach and communication activities. The new communication and outreach office has deeply promoted the involvement of all the personnel (scientists and support staff) in these activities with the support of specific committees (Gender equality, Outreach, RRI, etc.). It has become now a general belief of our personnel, that outreach and communication is a key output of any research center and so we have adapted these activities to scientists and general public needs. Both internal and external communication initiatives have been launched (newsletter, visits, participation in events, organization of seminars, workshops, outreach projects, press release notes, etc.). Also collaboration with external institutions has helped a lot to expand the interest for science in young students. The effort to increase the presence of ICMAB in the social media (Tweeter, Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Youtube) has been very rewarding: an extraordinary growth of the followers (in the range of 70 – 170 %) has been achieved while our website has been the most accessed of CSIC.
Finally, following the external evaluation of the knowledge transfer capabilities of ICMAB and the advice of our Scientific Advisory Board, we have reinforced our Knowledge Transfer Unit which is helping to promote patent applications, license agreements, industrial and final user collaborations, as well as project preparation with industrial participation. Some progress has already been achieved in this direction, in spite of the present unfavorable socio-economic concerns, and we expect to continue this trend in the near future.
In conclusion, we hope that you will appreciate reading and surfing through the present report where you will feel the vitality of ICMABers. On the other hand, to be continuously following our advancements and our initiatives, we invite you to join our social media and web site where we keep updated information about us.
Enjoy the tour!
Xavier Obradors
Director of ICMAB
