The Director-General of Health in Agri-Food Production and Animal Welfare, Valentín Almansa de Lara, presided over the awards ceremony held at the Fertiberia Group headquarters in Madrid
- For yet another edition, Fertiberia continues to promote research and reward talent in agronomics, awarding 30,000 Euros in prizes
- Joana Rita Viana Prado and Manuel Anguita Maeso receive two runners-up prizes for their research work
Madrid, 27 November 2024. Researcher José Luis Pancorbo is the recipient of the 26th Fertiberia Award for the Best Doctoral Thesis on Agricultural Subjects, one of the most outstanding awards for agronomic research in Europe, for his thesis titled “Remote sensing assessment of land use and crop parameters in irrigated systems”, defended at the Polytechnic University of Madrid. The awards ceremony, held at the Group’s corporate headquarters in Madrid, was presided over by the Director-General of Health in Agri-Food Production and Animal Welfare, Valentín Almansa de Lara, and the CEO of Grupo Fertiberia, Javier Goñi.
Likewise, a runners-up second prize was awarded to Joana Rita Viana Prado and Manuel Anguita Maeso receive two runners-up prizes for their research work for her thesis titled “Blending of raw and treated animal manures to produce organic fertilisers”, defended at the University of Lisbon, and to Manuel Anguita Maeso for his work titled “The olive microbiome and its role in modulating host response to verticillium dahlia: Unraveling the determining and modifying factors”, defended at the University of Córdoba.
In addition to its academic prestige, the Fertiberia Award is one of the best-financed awards for agronomic research in Europe, with a total amount of 30,000 Euros to be distributed between thesis authors and supervisors. Specifically, in this edition, the author of the winning thesis received 14,000 Euros, while his thesis supervisors received 8,000 Euros to be distributed between both of them. In turn, the authors of the works awarded the runners-up prizes received 2,500 Euros and their thesis supervisors 1,500 Euros, respectively for each work.
During the event, the Director-General of Health in Agri-Food Production and Animal Welfare, Valentín Almansa de Lara, highlighted the agri-food sector potential: “We are a strategic and highly competitive engine that looks outward and operates globally. Even so, we are facing the challenge of optimizing the use of resources we have and become more efficient. Today, we recognize the efforts of three researchers who have dedicated their time and expertise to addressing this great challenge through applied science, innovation, and digitalization.”
In turn, Javier Goñi, CEO of Grupo Fertiberia, emphasised: “Fertiberia Group considers knowledge and innovation to be at the core of our strategy, as we believe they are key to building a more efficient, environmentally friendly future. This commitment has led us to reward, for 26 consecutive years, research that not only responds to the demands of society, but also to the major challenges faced by sustainable agriculture. In this 26th edition, we recognize the extraordinary work of three researchers, whose projects stand out for their scientific excellence and relevance in the search for innovative solutions for the agricultural sector.”
The jury in this edition, chaired by the Director of ETSIAAB, José Manuel Palacios Alberti, was made up of the CEO of Grupo Fertiberia, Javier Goñi; the Professor of ETSI Agronomist UPM, Augusto Arce Martinez, the Dean of the Official Association of Agricultural Engineers of Central Spain and the Canary Islands (COIACC), Francisco González Torres, the Technical Director of the Technical Directorate for Variety Evaluation and Laboratories of the National Institute for Agricultural and Food Research and Technology (INIA-CSIC), Ana Patricia Fernández-Getino, the Director of Market Studies and Research at Grupo Fertiberia, Pilar García-Serrano, and the Director of R&D at Grupo Fertiberia, Javier Brañas.
Twenty-six editions of commitment to research and development in the sector
Since the award was created, more than 400 doctoral theses from 50 universities and research centres in Spain and Portugal have been considered. In addition, prizes worth close to one million Euros have been awarded, thus boosting the research capacity and talent in agronomics for professionals in the sector.
The official announcement for these Awards establishes the main requirement that the theses submitted have obtained the maximum “cum laude” qualification and that they are directly related to fertilisation, soils and their amendment, and to agricultural activity in general.
