The objective is to disseminate some of the technological progress carried out by the researching groups of IFIC that can be implemented beyond basic research. The collaboration expects to develop 5 projects in fields such as health, development of new materials, radiation safety and new technologies for particle accelerators.

These projects are carried out in cooperation with other technological institutes, centres of research and Valencian companies. In addition, UCIE will identify new technologies that can be introduced in the Valencian productive sector, acting as a link between the research of IFIC and the Valencian Business fabric.

The Scientific Units for Business Innovation (UCIE) are a new tool created by AVI to develop new technologies that are not available in the market and that are linked to the researching areas of the centres that host them. This new unit works thanks to the material and human resources that are allocated in the research centre plus the resources provided by the Agency (€250,000 the first year in the case of IFIC).

“The creation of an UCIE of the Valencian Agency for Innovation in the IFIC is an excellent new.  This recognises that the efforts that our centre makes transferring knowledge to the productive sector bear fruits”, states the director of IFIC, Juan José Hernández Rey.

According to Juan Fuster Verdú, vice-director for Innovation and Technology of IFIC and coordinator of the new UCIE, the creation of this Unit “is a great opportunity for the Institute of Corpuscular Physics. The IFIC values positively this initiative of the Valencian Government. We are pleased of being part of it and we will make a real effort to make it work.

The Institute of Corpuscular Physics (IFIC) is a joint centre of the Universitat de València and the Spanish National Research Council, which is located in the Parc Científic of the academic institution and focuses on researching Nuclear, Particle and Astroparticle Physics as well as its application in the fields of Medical Physics, Science and Technology. IFIC is a pioneer in Spain in the research of the constituents of matter, as it has been doing so since the 1950s. It participates in international experiments such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) of the CERN, KM3NeT or FAIR, which are considered critical infrastructure facilities in Europe. It obtained the Centre of Excellency Severo Ochoa in 2015 because of its important national and international contributions, its impact in society and industry and its capacity to attract talent.

IFIC has an international nature as its 280 workers come from 23 different nationalities. More than the 60% of its post-doctoral researchers are foreigners. The scientific personnel of IFIC publish more than 400 articles a year in important scientific magazines and lecture a similar number of talks in national and international conferences.  In 2017, the IFIC developed 90 projects of research: 16 were European, 28 national and 19 regional projects.