History

In 1976 Ramón Areces created the foundation that bears his name, with the broad objective of fostering scientific and technical research in Spain and education and culture in general. The Foundation was a pioneering institution in our country, and ever since its creation it has constantly and firmly supported scientific research as the driving force behind progress and modernity.

In its early years, the Foundation created and developed the necessary instruments to boost scientific research (national procedures to award financial aid for research), favor the training of human capital (scholarship programs for further studies abroad), and popularize and humanize science (scientific dissemination programs). By the late seventies, for the first time a private foundation was financing basic and applied research, opening up new opportunities for researchers and providing researchers with a forum for publicly showcasing their work.

The Foundation has constantly and firmly supported scientific and technical research as the driving force behind progress and modernity of society.

The development of creative talent and the acquisition of experience in all realms of scientific and technical knowledge became a top priority task for the Foundation in the eighties, particularly with Spain's accession to membership in the EEC (today's European Union), which opened up important opportunities but also was to require Spanish society to make an effort in training and innovation.

In 1989 Isidoro Álvarez assumed the presidency of the Foundation, with the twofold commitment to remain faithful to the goals set for the Foundation by its creator, Ramón Areces, and to expand the Foundation's activities. True to that commitment, the Foundation has infused research with fresh strength by furnishing greater economic resources and creating new aid programs better suited to the demands of an era characterized by spectacularly fast, constant scientific and technological advances; it has strengthened its commitment to the training of human capital and boosted disseminating activity in the new environment of the information and knowledge society.

After Mr. Isidoro Álvarez passed away on September 14th 2014, Florencio Lasaga Munárriz was elected President of the Foundation unanimously by the Board of Patrons. They, as well unanimously, approved the entrance of Cristina Alvarez Guil, who also assumes the role of vice president, and Marta Álvarez Guil to the Board.

On April 27, 2021, the Board of Trustees of Fundación Ramón Areces unanimously appointed Mrs. Marta Álvarez as President, replacing Mr. Florencio Lasaga, who continues as Patron of the Foundation. This appointment was made at the proposal of the Vice President Mrs. Cristina Álvarez and was endorsed by all the trustees of the Foundation.

Milestones

January: Launch of the 1st Call for Grants for Further Postgraduate Studies Abroad in the Humanities, aimed at the areas of History, Philosophy, Hispanic Philology, Spanish Literature, Geography and Digital Humanities.
May: The Ramón Areces Foundation and the Queen Sofía Spanish Institute organise the first conference “America&Spain250. Commemorating 250 years of relations between Spain and the United States 1776-2026”.
June: Andorra joins the Encyclopaedia of the Romanesque in the Iberian Peninsula, a collection that brings together more than 9,000 Romanesque testimonies collected in 61 volumes. This work by the Santa María la Real Foundation has been made possible thanks to the collaboration and funding of the Ramón Areces Foundation.
September: The first National Competition for the Awarding of Grants for Research in the Humanities is announced. In this edition, the selected candidates will further their studies in Hispanic Philology, Philosophy, Geography and Digital Humanities.
October: The Foundation launches the first call for the PINERA Rare Diseases Research Programme, with a double line of grants for a Multicentre Research Project and for the Structural Endowment for Rare Diseases Research Programmes.

The researcher Armando del Río becomes the first scientist to return to Spain under the Ramón Areces Foundation's Return of Talent Programme.
December: The plenary session of the Royal Academy of Sciences names the Ramón Areces Foundation ‘Protective Institution’ for its uninterrupted support to the Academy over the years. This is the first time that an institution has received this distinction.

January: The Ramón Areces Foundation and the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies (CES) at Harvard University create a fellowship programme for outstanding Spanish postdoctoral students at an early stage of their careers to carry out research at this centre as residents for one academic year.
May: The Ramón Areces Foundation and the Ragon Institute in the United States create the ‘Ramón Areces Foundation Research Fellowships’ programme aimed at Spanish post-doctoral researchers with expertise in virology, computational and structural biology, computational statistics, engineering, physical sciences, microbiology, immunology and other related fields.
May: Launch of the first call for applications for the Ramón Areces Foundation Grants for the employment of young PhD holders in the field of Social Sciences.
June: The Ramón Areces Foundation creates an innovative programme for the return of scientific talent. It will facilitate the return to Spain of researchers with a consolidated career abroad.
June: The Ramón Areces Foundation joins the ‘Todos Contra el Cáncer’ initiative. The Spanish Association Against Cancer's project aims to achieve a 70% survival rate by 2030 and to improve four areas: dissemination, care, prevention and treatment.
September: RENACER, the world's first repository of live brain metastasis samples, created by CNIO researchers with the support of the Ramón Areces Foundation, will help to apply the most effective therapy for each patient.
September: The Foundation launches the first call for applications for Doctoral Thesis Grants in the Humanities with the aim of supporting the training of people who wish to embark on scientific research in the areas of History, Philosophy, Hispanic Philology, Spanish Literature, Geography and Digital Humanities.
October: Completion of the Encyclopaedia of the Romanesque in Portugal. After five years of work by a multidisciplinary team of 20 professionals, the Santa María la Real Foundation has managed to complete the Encyclopaedia of the Romanesque in Portugal. This work would not have been possible without the collaboration and funding of the Ramón Areces Foundation.
November: Madrid becomes the European capital of quantum technologies with the Quantum Technologies In Europe conference. The headquarters of the Ramón Areces Foundation brought together 20 experts, including the Nobel Prize winners in Physics, Segre Haroche (France) and Anton Zeilinger (Austria), as well as the 2006 Prince of Asturias Award winner, Spanish professor Juan Ignacio Cirac.
November: The Ramón Areces Foundation announces scholarships abroad in Digital Humanities. These grants will allow students to do a doctorate for three years in specialised centres in Australia, Canada, Colombia, Estonia and the United Kingdom.
December: The Ramón Areces Foundation awards a grant for research in Modern Spanish Studies at the University of Oxford

March: The fifth edition of the FRA-MIT-ILP Symposium was held under the title ‘The Future of Energy: Addressing Climate Change’. MIT professors Sergey Paltsev, Dennis G. Whyte, Howard J. Herzog and Peter Godart addressed the technological options, the economic and climate impacts of energy decisions and the future of fusion and the potential of carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS), among other topics.
April: As a result of the collaboration between the Ramón Areces Foundation and Nobel Prize Outreach, the podcast series ‘Conversations on the Nobel Prize’ was launched. Eleven 2021 Nobel Laureates share what they have learned from their careers and what they like to do outside their work. All podcasts are available on the Foundation's website.
June: Together with the World Health Organization and the Global Palliative Care Observatory ATLANTES of the University of Navarra, the International Symposium ‘Global Palliative Care: Challenges and Future Expectations’ was organised in which experts analysed the challenges facing palliative care worldwide.
July: Under the title ‘Imagination at work’, the Foundation hosts a ‘Nobel Prize - in dialogue’ conversation at its headquarters, organised with Nobel Prize Outreach, bringing together two Nobel Prize winners and two renowned Spanish researchers to discuss their approach to scientific research and the role of creativity in their work.
September: The Ramón Areces Foundation launches the first scholarship programme in Digital Humanities that allows Spanish students to complete their studies in this discipline at the University of Western Ontario for three years.
October: With the aim of collaborating in the training of people who wish to start out in scientific research, the Foundation launches a public call for applications for grants to carry out Doctoral Theses in Life and Material Sciences and Social Sciences at Spanish universities and other research centres.
November: To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Encyclopaedia of the Romanesque in whose edition the Ramón Areces Foundation has played a leading role together with the Santa María la Real Foundation and its promoter José María Pérez ‘Peridis’, our institution hosted a conference in which some of the authors of this unique work on which more than 3,000 people have worked took part.
December: On the occasion of the commemoration of the 70th Anniversary of the establishment of the Court of Justice of the EU, the Royal Academy of Jurisprudence and Legislation and the Ramón Areces Foundation organised a Round Table to analyse the evolution of the Court of Justice in both organisational and jurisprudential terms.

April: The Board of Trustees of the Ramón Areces Foundation unanimously appoints Marta Álvarez Guil as president. Marta Álvarez has been president of El Corte Inglés since July 2019 and a trustee of the Ramón Areces Foundation since 2015.
May: The Foundation allocates 2.3 million euros to 22 new research projects in Life and Material Sciences. 71.6% of the allocated resources were allocated to the fight against disease.
September: The Foundation launches its podcast channel to showcase its audiovisual collections, attract new audience profiles at any time and place and promote knowledge among society in areas such as History, Physics, Mathematics, the exploration of the Universe or the exploration of the Planet.
November: The Foundation awards 216,000 euros to six research projects in the Social Sciences. The awardees are Spanish researchers under the age of 40.

May: On May 26, the Ramón Areces Foundation launched a series of "Online Conversations" in which important figures from the scientific, economic and culture fields reflect on what the world will be like after the COVID-19 pandemic.
September: The Ramón Areces Foundation and the Royal Spanish Mathematical Society presented “Libro Blanco de las Matemáticas”, a collective work in which more than 60 specialists worked for more than two years. The work proposes 64 improvement actions for the development of this science in a digital society.
October: The Ramón Areces Foundation awards grants to eight new projects in Social Sciences to researchers under 40 years old from the universities of Navarra, La Laguna and Pablo de Olavide and from the CEMFI, CUNEF and IESE training centers .

The Foundation allocates EUR 5.2 million for 42 research projects for Life and Matter Sciences.
The Foundation's headquarters hosts the first The Nobel Prize Dialogue held in Europe outside Sweden. Five Nobel Prizes and more than twenty experts talked about the future of ageing.
The Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel includes the Fundación Ramón Areces in the International Plaza Donor Wall, site for recognition of major gifts on the Weizmann Institute of Science.
H.R.H. Grand Duke of Luxembourg attended a solemn ceremony in which the Fundación Ramón Areces was awarded the Medal of Honor of the Fundación Carlos de Amberes. Florencio Lasaga, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, received the award.

Florencio Lasaga, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Ramón Areces Foundation, receives on behalf of the Institution, the Gold Medal of the Royal National Academy of Medicine.
Signing of the agreement with the Nobel Foundation for the organization at the headquarters of Fundación Ramón Areces of the First Nobel Prize Dialogue held in Europe outside Sweden.
The symposium on the centenary of the Spanish influenza of 1918 is held. The worst pandemic in contemporary world history, in memory of Professor Julio R. Villanueva.
Professors María Emilia Casas and Miguel Jerez join the Social Sciences Advisory Council and Professors María Vallet and Manuel Aguilar Benítez de Lugo join the Scientific Council.

Ramon Areces Foundation becomes a strategic partner of The Centro Botín in Santander.
A collaboration agreement is signed with Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Agreement with the Ministry of Defense for the digitalization of the Cuban War Files.
Framework collaboration agreement with the Weizmann Institute of Science of Israel.

The headquarters of the Ramón Areces Foundation hosts the presentation in Spain of the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, with the presence of the Monegasque monarch.
The comprehensive renovation of the Foundation's Auditorium has been completed.
Mr. Víctor del Pozo joins the Board of Trustees of the Foundation, replacing Mr. Juan Hermoso.

The Foundation appointed Mr. Florencio Lasaga Munárriz as Chairman of the Board and Ms. Marta Álvarez Guil and Ms. Cristina Álvarez Guil became Trustees.
Ms. Cristina Álvarez Guil was appointed Deputy Chair and Mr. Antonio Hernández Gil became the new Secretary of the Board of Trustees.
Ms. Paloma García Peña and Mr. Jesús Nuño de la Rosa joined the Foundation's Board of Trustees.

The Ramón Areces Foundation received the Silver Medal from the Consell Valencià de Cultura (CVC), an advisory body to the regional government of Valencia, presided over by professor Santiago Grisolía, for its scientific, social and cultural philanthropic work and patronage since it was created in 1976.
On the 14th of September, Mr. Isidoro Álvarez Álvarez, Chairman of the Ramón Areces Foundation, died. The funeral chapel, set up in the Foundation's headquarters, was visited by numerous figures from the worlds of finance, economics, politics, academia, foundations and culture, to pay their last respects to the man who had been the Chairman of the Ramón Areces Foundation and El Corte Inglés since1989.

Augusto Delkader, president of Prisa Radio, joined the Social Sciences Advisory Board.
Lecturers from the London School of Economics delivered the first programme of LSE Master Classes.
Death of Mr. Juan Manuel de Mingo y Contreras, secretary of the Foundation's Board of Trustees.
Carlos Martínez Echavarría, new secretary of the Foundation's Board of Trustees.

His Royal Highness the Prince of Asturias closes the forum "Ways for the internationalisation of SMEs".
A Framework Collaboration Agreement is signed with the LSE.
The Foundation opens its profile on Twitter.

Death of Professor Luis Ángel Rojo, chairman of the Foundation's Social Sciences council from 2000 until his death in May.
Professor Emilio Bouza becomes a member of the Foundation's Scientific Council in July. Its most important lines of research focus on the study of infections acquired in hospital and particularly those which affect patients after complex surgery and immuno-suppressed and transplant patients.
December witnesses the death of Professor Manuel Varela Parache, member of the Social Sciences Council.
The Ramón Areces Foundation opens its profiles on the social networks: Facebook; Slideshare, Flickr and Youtube.

First promotion of students from the Expert Course in Commercial Distribution Studies, Ramón Areces Foundation-University of Oviedo.
Professor Alfonso Novales Cinca becomes a member of the Foundation's Social Sciences Council.
The Foundation launches fundacionareces.tv, its own internet television channel to encourage the dissemination of knowledge.

The Foundation contributes 100,000 euros to the fight against Alzheimer's.
Professor Avelino Corma joins the Foundation's Scientific Council.
The Foundation publishes the first edition of its half-yearly Review.

The Board of Trustees appoints Raimundo Pérez-Hernández y Torra as director of the institution.
Signing of the agreement with Oviedo University, creating the first Commercial Distribution Chair in Spain.
The Foundation finances a malaria research project headed by Dr Pedro Alonso with one million Euros.

Chairman of Ramón Areces Foundation, Isidoro Álvarez Álvarez, receives the Royal Academy of Moral and Political Sciences' gold medal.
The Spanish Foundations Association awards the Ramón Areces Foundation its 2007 Medal of Honour.

Signing of an agreement with the national government to finance, in partnership with other entities, the National Cardiovascular Research Center (CNIC), directed by cardiologist Valentín Fuster, with the objective of making the CNIC a world pacesetter in its research field.

The Board of Social Sciences was created, chaired by Professor Luis Ángel Rojo, with the objective of boosting the Foundation's activities in the area of economics and other social sciences.
The first national selection process was held to award aid for economics research, with the goal of promoting scientific research in the area of economic science by young scientists under 40 years of age.

Their Majesties the King and Queen of Spain inaugurated the Computerized System of the General Archive of the Indies, one of the more significant projects financed by the Foundation.
Cooperation agreements were signed with the High Council of Scientific Research and the Severo Ochoa Foundation, by means of which the institution finances the training of young researchers and research in molecular biology, respectively.

The Foundation joined the Hague Club of European Foundations.
The Foundation initiated cooperation agreements with the royal academies to finance cultural activity programs.

Ramón Areces passed away. The chair of the trust was assumed by Isidoro Álvarez Álvarez, with the twofold commitment to remain faithful to the institution's founding goals and to expand its activities.

The Foundation moved to its current headquarters at Calle Vitruvio, 5, Madrid.

The Scientific Council chaired by Nobel prizewinner Professor Severo Ochoa was created. The vice chairman's seat was occupied by Professor Federico Mayor Zaragoza, who took over the chair of the Scientific Council in 1993 after Professor Severo Ochoa's death.
The program of scholarships for further studies abroad was created.

Professor Severo Ochoa, winner of the Nobel Prize for medicine, inaugurated the institution's program of cultural activities and activities to disseminate scientific knowledge.

Ramón Areces created the foundation that bears his name, with the objective of "returning to society that which had been received from society."
The first national process was held to select the recipients of aid for scientific and technical research.