PRESS RELEASE
The Board of the CRG officially names the successor to Miguel Beato who has been at the helm for the past ten years
RESEARCHER LUIS SERRANO IS THE NEW DIRECTOR OF THE CENTRE FOR GENOMIC REGULATION
Under the direction of Miguel Beato, the CRG has established itself among the top Spanish and European research centres with an innovative model for Spanish science 
With an internationally recognised scientific career, Luis Serrano approaches his new role as director with the challenges of being a world leader, attracting private funding and translating knowledge into health benefits and economic wealth  
The board of the Centre for Genomic regulation (CRG) has named the researcher Luis Serrano as the new director for an initial period of 5 years. Serrano replaces Miguel Beato, who has headed the institution for the past ten years, the maximum period stipulated for this position. Born in Madrid 52 years ago and with a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the Autonomous University of Madrid, Luis Serrano has been, among other things, group leader at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg (Germany) and Structural and Computational Biology programme manager between the EMBL and the CNIO. He currently heads up the Systems Biology programme at the CRG, where since 2007 he has been in the position of deputy director. 
The leadership takeover of the CRG was planned from its inception in 2000, when a completely pioneering management model for science in Spain was opted for, being as close as possible to international standards. Based on this model, all of the scientists, group leaders, programme coordinators and directors, have contracts and are evaluated every 5 years by an external scientific advisory committee. 
Under this management system, it was planned that the position of director would be reviewed after a maximum of ten years. And indeed, this was one of the main conditions which Miguel Beato negotiated when he joined the project in 2000. From this moment on, the new director is Luis Serrano, who combines leadership, scientific and managerial skills, qualities that will be very useful in the current climate of global economic crisis. 
The selection process for the new director took place on an international level, through advertisements in leading scientific journals such as Science, Nature and the EMBO Journal. A total of 13 candidates applied from a variety of locations including the UK, Germany, the USA and Australia. The external scientific advisory board of the CRG was responsible for leading the selection process and presenting the most suitable candidate to the CRG board for approval and appointment. 
Continuity and new challenges for the future
As the new director, Serrano will try to maintain the continuity of the project, as well as bringing new ideas and new challenges to the centre. In this new era, Luis Serrano intends to continue along the same lines and make the CRG a benchmark institute in biomedical research on a global level. “One of my intentions as director is to make the CRG a European benchmark centre for human genome analysis. To do this, my challenges will be to attract private funding through sponsorship and partnership with companies as well as consolidating and reorganising the institute to make it more efficient”, he explains.  
At the same time, in addition to furthering research into the understanding of the human genome and the complexity of life, Serrano's intention is to “translate this knowledge into better health and quality of life for society, while at the same time converting it into economic wealth for the country.” 
In fact, under the direction of Luis Serrano, the CRG will base its activities on four principal tenets, specifically “research excellence, the use of scientific knowledge for the benefit of public health and the national economy, the communication of scientific advances to the general public establishing a bilateral dialogue and being receptive to their demands, and the training of the next generation of researchers from the youngest, through school activities, to scientists, in order to consolidate their careers.” 
Ten years of a world class research centre 
The researcher Luis Serrano takes the reins of the CRG in a not insignificant position, since in its ten year history the centre has achieved a privileged position among international benchmark research centres. 
After being named as the new director of the CRG, Luis Serrano explained that he is looking forward to this phase and says "One of the reasons I returned to Spain 5 years ago after 18 years in England and Germany, and gave up my place as programme director at the EMBL and the possibility of being director of the Max Planck Institute, was the challenge of helping to create a Spanish centre of international importance that would compete with the best centres on the world stage. I have tried to do so, firstly from my position as programme coordinator, and then as deputy director, and now I have the challenge and the chance to do so as director. It is a great opportunity which I hope to measure up to.”  
For his part, Miguel Beato has weighed up these ten years at the helm of the centre. "We had the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) as a reference model and, in some respects, we have exceeded this. In fact, being only 10 years old has allowed us greater flexibility to adapt the model to new trends”.  
He also highlights that in these ten years “There has been a remarkable change in society, especially in Catalonia, which has supported and backed us up a lot. The CRG has enjoyed continued support which has allowed us to outstrip our initial plans. We have managed to attract excellent workers, from home and abroad, because we offer a highly competitive environment and facilities.” 
On a personal level, Miguel Beato declares that “My dreams have been fulfilled in spades. And most importantly, what has happened in the CRG is not an isolated phenomenon. There are other great centres in different disciplines”.  And he confesses that “We have reached a level that I did not suspect we could when we started”.  
A pioneering model for science in Spain 
A decade ago, in 2000, Miguel Beato was one of the architects of the CRG, a project which emerged thanks to an initiative of the then Minister for Universities, Research and Innovation of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Andreu Mas-Colell. Now, coincidentally, it is once again Mas-Colell, now in charge of the Department of Economy and Knowledge of the Catalan government, who has officially named Luis Serrano as the new director of the CRG and successor of Beato. 
The CRG was created as an ambitious project that revolutionised organisational models and science management in Catalonia and Spain. From the beginning, Beato has advocated independent organisation and management of the centre, with the aim of encouraging the mobility and internationality of the researchers. 
This model, already existing in Europe and adopted by the CRG, has proved to be one of the keys to positioning the CRG among the international benchmark research centres, as is demonstrated by various international reports and rankings.  
For example, the CRG ranks at number 32 in the 2010 SCImago Index which evaluated more than 2,800 research centres worldwide. According to this index, the centre is also ranked second in Spain and twelfth in Europe, if the high quality of scientific publications is taken into account. Besides this, the CRG is also in first position in Spain if indicators such as the number of international collaborations or quantity of citations per published article are considered.  
For further information: Laia Cendrós, Communication and Public Relations Dept., Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), Dr. Aiguader, 88 – Edif. PRBB, 08003 Barcelona. Tel. +34 93 316 02 37.