'Investigar, educar, dialogar. Las lecciones que aprendimos de José Mariano Gago (1948-2015)'. Con este título celebramos los días 1 y 2 de junio de 2016 en la Fundación Ramón Areces un simposio para homenajear la trayectoria de quien fue ministro de Ciencia y Tecnología (1995-2002) y ministro de Ciencia, Tecnología y Educación Superior (2005-2011) de Portugal. Gago desempeñó una labor crucial en el diseño de los planes de desarrollo de la ciencia, la tecnología y la innovación, no solo en su país sino en toda Europa.

1. Mariano Gago Conference
Madrid, 1 June 2016, ARECES and AE
CERCA Centers
Defining Principles
Andreu Mas-Colell
UPF and Barcelona GSE

2. 0. Some preliminary facts about CERCA
• 43 Centers
• Quite heterogeneous
• CERCA Institution: publicly run support and evaluation
structure.
• Over all fields
• 12 founded previous to 2000
• Except two all are single-centers (in location)
• The largest (single center): around 500 people. The
smallest: 25.
• In all: 114 ERC Grants of the 210 awarded to Catalan
institutions.

3. 1. Endowed with legal standing
• The centers are legal Consortia or
Foundations, the second form is preferred.
• Justification: to facilitate an efficient
governance, and agility in the functioning of
the center.

4. 2.- Critical mass
• The threshold is discipline specific
• Justification: (i) scientific competitiviness in
the international arena, (ii) economic
efficiency (the running of a center has fixed
costs)
• Critical mass has to be reached progressively,
but there should be an initial commitment to
a set goal, and the commitment should be
kept.

5. 3. Private, not administrative, law
• Hence the preference for the foundation form.
• In principle, the private law functioning is
compatible with public funding. However, the
fiscal consolidation process of the last 8 years
has eroded this possibility. This is a current
problem and challenge.

6. 4.-Responsible board
• The authority of the Center should reside in a
Board.
• The financing public authorities should be
present in the Board.
• It is not clear (although this has been the case
almost universally) that the public authorities
should have a majority of the votes in the Board.
• In any case the public authorities can exercise
control and supervision through the financing
contract.

7. 5. Fully empowered director
• The Director is appointed by the Board and has
full authority over scientific and management
matter. No divided authority.
• It has to be a scientist of some distinction and
management experience.
• Ideally, appointed after a public call. Not always
realistic for a starting center.
• Qualities of a starting director: vision,
competence, enthusiasm, and total commitment.
• A Director should understand that a center is not
an oversized research group.

8. 6.-Own personnel policies and
selection
• A center is its people. This collective has to be
shaped exclusively by the center.
• Hiring and promotion policies are center
specific. There is diversity, especially in
promotion policies.
• All the above is compatible with the desirable
external advice on appointment and
promotion matters.

9. 7.-Labour contracts
• The personnel of the centers (scientific or
otherwise) is hired under labour contracts.
• There are some exceptions in the case of
centers with participation of personnel of
other institutions.
• Labour contracts favour agility in hiring (good
opportunities can be acted on, no hindrances
in hiring non-nationals, etc.)

10. 8.- International Scientific Advisory
Board
• All the centers have an External Scientific
Advisory Board that meets periodecally.
• In addition there are periodic evaluations by
the CERCA Institution, the public institution (a
foundation) that supports the CERCA system.

11. 9.- Pluriannual programming
• Predictability in the basic public funding is of
paramount importance.
• Some success in achieving it, considering the
circunstances of the last 8-9 years.
• One lesson learned and adhered to: success
(e.g. In obtaining EU funds) should not be
penalized (e.g. by reducing internal public
contributions).

12. 10.- At university campuses
• All centers have a significant physical embodiment.
They are not networks.
• Only two centers are multilocation.
• All the centers are at university campuses (critical mass
principle).
• The corresponding universities sit on the Boards of the
centers, but not in a dominant position. The centers
have its own governance.
• If tensions arise (there has not been much) they can be
managed.
• The centers add to the universities and conversely.

13. 11.- International outlook
• The centers should view themselves, from
conception, as players in the European
Reasearch Area and the world.
• As a consequence, the evaluation yardsticks
should be international.
• English is the working language in many
centers (to a partial extent, in all).

14. 12.-Cooperative attitude
• Cooperation of centers with other CERCA
centers, with CSIC, with universities, with the
private sector, etc, is encouraged.

15. 13.- Transfer activities are encouraged
• All centers have policies and programs for the
projection of the center into the economy.
• The above is true even for the most basic
research centers. In this sense, the model is
sui-generis. With German glasses some
centers are Fraunhoffers with some basic
research and some ara Max Plancks with an
active transfer policy.
• Success to an unequal degree.

16. 14. Excellence remit
• This is last but not least: for all the above to
make sense the centers must be driven by the
ambition of excellence.
• In this matter enough is never enough, but an
indication of being in the right path has been
the success in attracting external funds, crucial
for the resilience exhibited by the system
during the crisis, unfortunately not yet over
(fingers crossed…).

17. Conclusion
• Mariano, we miss you!