SOMMa: excellent Spanish research alliance
SOMMa is the alliance of Severo Ochoa centres and María de Maeztu units to promote Spanish Excellence in research and to enhance its social impact at national and international levels.
SOMMa was officially launched in October 2017. Curently, the centers forming part of SOMMa has increased. It currently brings together 29 centres and 20 units accredited through these excellence awards and aims to:
- Increase the national and international visibility of the SO and MM programme as an “interdisciplinary and interconnedted Spanish research ecosystem of excellence”
- Promote exchange of knowledge, technology and good practices among its members, the international scientific community and key stakeholders.
- Have a voice in Spanish science policy.
- Collaborate with other centres and universities to push forward Spanish science.
SOMMa is organized by a Chair (María Blasco, CNIO), two Vice-Chairs (María José Sanz (BC3) and Antonio Molina (CBGP-UPM-INIA), a Project Manager, a Communication Officer and by a steering committee in charge of different work packages.
Organization of the 100xCiencia meetings
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the activity of the SOMM Alliance was highly reduced, and the 100xCiencia5 2020 meeting was cancelled.
The past 100xCiencia meetings of the SOMMa were the following:
- In 2017, the 100xCiencia2 meeting was held in Alicante (co-organized by the Neuroscience Institute), and its topic was “Co-creating value in scientific research” and was focused on technology transfer success stories.
- In 2018, the 100xCiencia3 meeting was held in Madrid (co-organized by the CNIO), the topic was "Bridging science and society" and was more devoted to outreach and educational activities.
- In 2019, the 100xCiencia4 meeting was held in Donostia/San Sebastián (co-organized by the Basque Centre on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL)), the topic was “Building bridges between Science and Society: What is science doing for you?" and addressed technology transfer projects and research.
SOMMa Editorial Board
The ICMAB Communication & Outreach Officer, Anna May Masnou, is part of the SOMMa Editorial Board, which is in charge of the SOMMa website and of the press releases of the SOMMa network. The Editorial Board meets once or twice a year and is in permanent contact with the SOMMa Communication Officer, Karel De Pourcq, who manages the articles for the website and its social networks.
SOMMa Job Openings
The SOMMa website has an active jobs site with job openings from all the SOMMa centers and units, and in which we keep posting new job offers.
SOMMa General Assembly
As ICMAB, we also participated in this year's SOMMa General Assembly, which took place on 11 December 2020. The main topic of the Assembly was the change of the presidency of the SOMM Alliance: from Luis Serrano to María Blasco. Other topics discussed were the new members, and the type of association to be constituted as SOMMa in the future. In addition, the managing of the Alliance will be now run by the CNIO, instead of the CRG, following the change of president.
