The Australian Government identifies Spain as strategic country for research collaborations


At the beginning of April 2022, the Australian Government released a statement detailing the strategic areas to invest in research with international collaborators, also promoting scientific diplomacy with those countries.

In particular, four strategic research fields are identified. Every field has four strategic countries:

  1. Advanced Manufacturing
  2. Hydrogen Production
  3. Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Computing
  4. Vaccines and RNA Therapies (including mRNA).

Spain is among the top 5 countries identified by Australia as strategic for research, since it appears in two of these blocks (Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Computing, and Vaccines and RNA therapies) ahead of countries such as Italy, Germany, Canada, Brazil, Switzerland or Singapore. Only one country, USA, is present in three of the strategic research fields. Three more, Japan, UK and France, are also in two of them.

This contrasts with the information that Professor Carles Padilla (Dean, Internationalization and Multilingualism, University of Valencia) and Professor Carmen Vargas (Dean, Strategy, University of Seville), on behalf of the CRUE (Conference of Vice-Chancelors of the Spanish Universities) provided during the event “Building Bridges Between the Australian and Spanish University Systems” that SRAP organised jointly with the Cervantes Institute in Sydney on May 30th.

In their presentation, Professor Carles Padilla and Professor Carmen Vargas reported on the research fields in which there is more collaboration between Spain and Australia (led by Astrophysics, but closely followed by Oncology) and the number of joint scientific publications between Spanish and Australian universities between 2011 and 2022 (led by the University of Barcelona and the University of Sydney). The details in the following images.

Main areas of research collaboration between Spanish and Australian universities. Slide presented by Professor Carles Padilla and Professor Carmen Vargas on behalf of CRUE during the event “Building Bridges between the Australian and Spanish University Systems”. 

Number of joint publications between Spanish and Australian universities since 2011. Slide presented by Professor Carles Padilla and Professor Carmen Vargas on behalf of CRUE during the event “Building Bridges between the Australian and Spanish University Systems”. 

It is a good time to promote research between Spain and Australia.

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Angel.Lopez-Sanchez

About Angel.Lopez-Sanchez

Dr Ángel R. López-Sánchez is an astrophysicist and science communicator working at the Australian Astronomical Optics (AAO) and the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the Macquarie University (MQ) in Sydney (NSW, Australia). His research is focused in the analysis of star formation phenomena in galaxies of the Local Universe, especially in dwarf starbursts and spiral galaxies, using multi-wavelength (UV, optical, IR, radio) data. He presented his PhD Thesis at University of La Laguna and the Instituto Astrofisica de Canarias (Spain) in 2006. In 2007 he joined CSIRO Astronomy & Space Science (Sydney) with a postdoctoral position. He then joined the AAO (formerly the Australian Astronomical Observatory) and MQ in 2011. In July 2018 he was appointed as Senior Lecturer at AAO-MQ. He has been providing instrument and observing support at the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT, Siding Spring Observatory, NSW) since 2011, being the instrument scientist of several instruments: the multi-fiber spectrograph 2dF+AAOmega and the near-infrared imager and spectrograph IRIS2. He also has large experience with integral-field spectroscopy (IFS), being a very active member of the SAMI collaboration at the AAT and part of the HECTOR Science Team. He currently is the Instrument Scientist of KOALA+AAOmega at the AAT, and leads the international astronomy survey "HI KOALA IFS Dwarf and irregular galaxy Survey" (Hi-KIDS), that is getting unique, high-quality IFS data of a sample of 100 nearby dwarf and irregular galaxies for which 21cm H I interferometric data is available He has large experience teaching undergraduate and PhD students and giving lectures and classes about Astronomy. Dr. López-Sánchez is passionate science communicator who continuously gives talks and public lectures, writes popular science articles and organizes science communication events and stargazing activities. He is very active in social media, his Twitter feed is @El_Lobo_Rayado.