Prof. Marcel Swart, director of the IQCC since 2015, was recently elected as member of Academia Europaea and received yesterday the corresponding decorations. The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy founded in 1988 and is composed of individual scientists and scholars from all disciplines, who are experts and leaders in their own subject areas as recognised by their peers. The academy aims to promote European scholarship and research, to encourage interdisciplinary and international scholarship, to identify topics of pan-European importance and propose appropriate action for adequately addressing these, and to provide independent and impartial advice to European institutions, governments and international agencies. Furthermore, it encourages achievement of the highest possible standards in scholarship, research and education, and promotes a better understanding among the public at large of the benefits of knowledge and learning, and of scientific and scholarly issues that affect society, its quality of life and its standards of living.
Prof. Swart is the first member of the University of Girona that has been distinguished with this honor, which follows upon having been elected to the Young Academy of Europe in 2014, for which he served as Chair from January 2017 until November 2018. Both the Academia Europaea and the Young Academy of Europe endeavor to shape EU-wide Science Policy for the prospering of science in Europe for future generations. One of the more prominent mechanisms in science policy in recent years has been the creation in 2015 of the Scientific Advice Mechanism (SAM) to support the European Commission with evidence-based scientific advice for policymaking, through the Science Advice for Policy by European Academies (SAPEA) consortium to which the Academia Europaea belongs.
Prof. Swart research track record includes >140 scientific papers, which can be divided into studies on method developments, catalysis, chemical bonding analyses and QM/MM on large systems. In recent years he focused in particular on transition-metal chemistry, the spin-states involved, and the effect these have on catalysis, spectroscopy and reaction mechanisms. He coordinated a highly successful COST Action (CM1305, ECOSTBio), a collaborative European project on transition-metal chemistry by research groups working on theory, synthesis, spectroscopy and catalysis. Furthermore, he was the main organizer of the 2016 and 2018 editions of the Girona Seminar.
Congratulations dire!!