NEWS
IHCantabria has received the ‘Leonardo Torres Quevedo National Innovation Award’ from the Caminos Foundation.
This award is granted in the category of “Public Administrations”, which distinguishes entities that have made of innovation an indispensable element in the development of their corporate strategy, demonstrating that innovation in engineering is a powerful lever for improving competitiveness.
This morning, at the Teatro Real in Madrid, the Fundación Instituto de Hidráulica Ambiental de Cantabria (FIHAC) received one of the Fundación Caminos 2022 Awards granted by the Fundación Caminos, in collaboration with the Colegio de Ingenieros de Caminos, Canales y Puertos (CICCP).
Having received this award as a “paradigm of the knowledge industry in Spanish engineering”, means a great recognition to the trajectory of FIHAC and the Institute of Environmental Hydraulics of the University of Cantabria (IHCantabria), to its way of being. “It is a recognition that rewards not only a person or a project, but a collective, all those who have allowed us to have this foundation and this institute today,” according to Raul Medina, vice president of FIHAC and general director of IHCantabria. In his opinion, “innovation is part of our DNA, of our way of being, being and feeling”, because “we try to generate innovative products and tools at the service of society”.
At the ceremony of the Caminos 2022 Foundation Awards, Medina explained the trajectory and merits of IHCantabria, which allow us to understand the level of excellence and national and international recognition of this institute, in which more than 200 people work. The essential pillars of its work are training, research and technology transfer, whose levels of excellence have earned IHCantabria and people who work in this institute several awards and recognitions.
In its different categories, the Caminos Foundation Awards recognize the relevant contribution of civil engineers in the process of transformation and modernization of Spain. Therefore, this award has valued the contribution of IHCantabria’s talent and collective work in the economic and social development of the country.
Among the personalities who participated in the Caminos 2022 Foundation Awards Gala were the Third Vice-President of the Government and Minister for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera, who was in charge of opening the event and presenting one of the awards. The gala was closed by the Secretary of State for Transport, David Lucas Parrón, on behalf of the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda.
The Gala was also attended by the Secretaries General of Transport and Mobility, Transport, Universities and Urban Agenda, Housing and Architecture, as well as the presidents of Typsa, Agbar, Adif, the AEC and Banco Caminos, and CEOs of Grupo Puentes and OHLA, among others. There was a large representation of deans, district secretaries and members of the General Council.
This is the second year that the Fundación Caminos Awards Gala is held on May 12, coinciding with the feast of Santo Domingo de la Calzada. The jury for this edition was composed, among others, of members of the board of directors and the board of trustees of the Fundación Colegio de Ingenieros de Caminos, Canales y Puertos and of the school itself (CICCP), heads of five State Secretariats (Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda; Environment; International Cooperation; Foreign Affairs and for Latin America and the Caribbean; and Education), the Secretary General of Universities and several Directors of Civil Engineering Schools.
The Award
The biennial Leonardo Torres Quevedo National Award for Innovation in Engineering was established by the Colegio de Ingenieros de Caminos, Canales y Puertos and the Fundación Caminos. This award, of an honorary nature, is presented at a ceremony along with the other awards granted by the Foundation, with the dual purpose of remembering the group of professionals who left their mark and to serve as an incentive for emerging generations.
The Caminos Foundation
The Caminos Foundation purpose of the “Colegio de Ingenieros de Caminos, Canales y Puertos”, established by the Colegio de Ingenieros de Caminos, Canales y Puertos, is to promote professional excellence and disseminate the creative and cooperative characteristics of the profession through the patronage of individuals and institutions that form part of the group of civil engineering professionals or that are linked to it.
