This week, and coinciding with the celebration of its twentieth anniversary, the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH) received a visit by its Scientific Advisory Board ("CAC"), which met to assess the proposed new CENIEH Strategic Plan for the period 2025-2028. The Board underlined the need for sufficient and sustained funding for it to remain at the vanguard of European science

The CAC is a consultative body whose function is to advise on the scientific and technological activities, programs and plans of the CENIEH, as well as to propose future actions that could enhance the quality and scope of its work. The Board is comprised of renowned researchers from the wide range of disciplines that make up studies of human evolution.

During its meeting, the Board praised the initiative by the administrations that decided to take a giant leap in 2004 by creating a project that is without equal in Europe thanks to its cutting-edge facilities and the talent of its staff. The CAC likewise emphasized the effort entailed by managing an institution with such a diversity of projects, and its commitment to communicating knowledge to society at large. 

However, it also warned that “solid, sustained and sufficient funding is necessary for this Center, which is unique in Europe, to continue to grow and remain at the vanguard of European science”. It pointed out specifically that, in a context of global and economic instability, it is fundamental to increase the financing of the CENIEH so as not to jeopardize its momentum or the effort that setting up a center of such stature meant.

After discussing the proposed Strategic Plan for the next four years with the Director of the Center, María Martinón Torres, the CAC underlined the excellence and ambition of the new objectives, which include leadership in emerging fields of research, like the analysis of ancient proteins, and new isotopic applications for geochronological studies of the evolution of landscape and diet, as well as the mobility of extinct populations.

Report by the CAC

All these recommendations and opinions will be compiled into a report by the CAC which will be submitted to the governing bodies, made up of the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades and the Consejería de Educación of the Junta de Castilla y León, at the end of this year, as part of the evaluation of the CENIEH for the period 2021-2024.

For her part, the CENIEH Director María Martinón Torres stated that the new Strategic Plan 2025-2028 is a roadmap that implies collaborations with many institutions from both Spain and other countries in the world, and she emphasized the importance of reinforcing and optimizing the synergies with the Universidad de Burgos, which it complements in facilities and staff, pursuing the common interest in studying the past. 

The CAC membership currently includes experts like: Louise Humphrey, of the Natural History Museum in London; Amélie Vialet, of the Institut de Paléontologie Humaine in Paris; Michael Petraglia of Griffith University (Australia); Mirjana Roksandic, of the University of Winnipeg (Canada); Eugenia Cunha of the University of Coimbra (Portugal); Susana Carvalho, of Oxford University; Juan Luis Arsuaga of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid; Tomas Marques-Bonet, of the Instituto de Biología Evolutiva (UPF-CSIC); Manuel Salesa, of the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in Madrid; Javier Baena of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid; Antonio Salas of the Faculty of Medicine at the Universidad de Santiago de Compostela; Marina Mosquera of the IPHES in Tarragona; and Juan José Villalaín, of the Universidad de Burgos.