“The Center for the Development of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, CEDENNA, is a very solid center, with very good leadership and a team of researchers, students and thesis students who fully meet what ANID expects of a Basal Center,” said the members of the National Research and Development Agency at the end of their annual inspection visit to the center.
As the body in charge of administering and executing the technological development and innovation programs and instruments defined by the Ministry of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation, ANID carries out annual inspections of centers that have obtained state funding for their projects.
In this context, ANID’s Associative Projects Directorate carried out its annual inspection visit on May 31 to learn in detail about the work carried out during the year by CEDENNA’s directors, researchers, students and staff.
Throughout the day, the members of the ministerial team met with the directors and toured each of the center’s laboratories one by one, issuing at the end a positive assessment of the work carried out by the scientists from 14 universities across the country that make up the center.
“I have a very good impression of CEDENNA. It is a very solid center. It is no coincidence that it has been around for more than 15 years, so the consolidation stage has already taken place. It has very good leadership, an excellent team of researchers, with graduate and undergraduate students and thesis students who clearly show an approach very much in line with what a Basal Center is,” said Helen Ipinza Wolf, Head of the Department of Development and Innovation Initiatives, who led the ANID delegation.
“These are centers of excellence in technology and science and therefore have a duty regarding what they do. They cannot just do excellent science and push the frontier of knowledge, because their goal is much broader: they have to connect basic science to applied science to propose solutions. And CEDENNA is very clear about that,” she added.
GREAT PROGRESS
“From what they told us, I have the impression that they are quite satisfied with the progress our center has shown, which this year has made great strides in basic science but also in applications,” said Dr. Dora Altbir, director of CEDENNA.
“Based on the knowledge being developed, we as a country need to advance in applications and find solutions to the different problems that arise in Chile’s productive development. And that is exactly what we do at our center: we develop knowledge, and that knowledge provides the basis for different applications that can solve concrete problems in the country,” she concluded.
