CSIC (Spanish National Research Council), http://www.csic.es/, is the Spain’s largest public research institution, and ranks third among Europe’s largest research organization. CSIC is under the responsibility of Spain’s Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through the Secretary of State for Research, Development and Innovation, and plays a key role in scientific and technological policy in Spain and worldwide. According to its Statute (Article 4), CSIC has 4 main missions: (i) to foster multidisciplinary scientific and technological research, (ii) knowledge transfer to industry and society, (iii) education and training of scientific and technical staff and (iv) creation of Technology-Based Companies.
CSIC has 10.940 employees, including 3.764 researchers. CSIC has 123 Institutes spread across the country and covering different areas of Science and Technology. 70 of them are fully-owned institutes and 53 are Joint Research Units in partnership with other Spanish universities or research institutions. CSIC has also a delegation in Brussels.
CSIC is a major player in the development of the European research area and therefore a significant contributor to the European integration process. CSIC signed 726 actions (including 70 coordinated by CSIC) within the 7th Framework Programme with a total contribution of over €264 million, and 512 projects with a total EU financial contribution of €217 million through the H2020 programme. According to E-CORDA, CSIC is listed as number one in Spain and 4th throughout Europe in terms of the number of projects within the research organisations.
The Centre for Automation and Robotics of CSIC (CSIC-CAR), http://www.car.upm-csic.es/, is the center responsible for the WeLASER project. The CSIC-CAR group has participated in many EC project (see below) and has managed four research Projects at European programmes as the coordinator: INCO-Copernicus Project 960054, ESPRIT 02/76100, GRD1-1999-11153 and RHEA FP7 N. 245986. The CSIC-CAR owns some facilities that will be essential for the project development such as (i) an electric/electronic workshop, with equipment for electronic cards design and manufacturing; (ii) a mechanical workshop, with equipment for both manufacturing and mounting robotic prototypes; (iii) a large laboratory for the integration of heavy equipment and (iv) some fields for growing crops (see pictures below).
Pablo Gonzalez-de-Santos -Project Coordinator