The National Biotechnology Centre of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) is the leading Biological Research facility in the Public domain in Spain. Since its start in 1992, it has maintained very productive programs in Microbial Biotechnology, Structural Biology, Plant Molecular Biology, Molecular and Cellular Biology, Immunology, and Oncology. The CNB is located within the campus of the Autonomous University of Madrid (AUM), that harbours the single most important constellation of scientists in Spain, and therefore, the centre has extensive human and material resources for the execution of this proposal. Besides, the CSIC is responsible for ca. 20% of international scientific publications of Spain and for 30% of the Spanish European patents.

ETH Zürich is one of the premier European research universities with an outstanding research record (including 21 Nobel laureates connected to it) and a current complement of 400 professors. Key strengths of the university are in life sciences, chemistry, engineering, and computer science. The Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE) of ETH Zurich in Basel was founded in 2009 to lead a unique interdisciplinary research initiative on the interface of life sciences and engineering with two strategic thrusts, Synthetic Biology and Systems Biology. Its core conceptual thrust is to explore and engineer molecular networks in biology and biotechnology on a systems level concomitantly with the required overarching conceptual and technological developments.

The University of Basel has a long tradition of excellence in teaching and research (founded in 1460, 7 faculties counting > 12.000 students and > 3.000 researchers. Life Sciences and Nanotechnology have been identified as part of the focus areas of the University of Basel. The University and the chemistry department are well integrated in the Basel Life Science hub and enjoy privileged contacts with World-leading companies including: Novartis, Roche, Actelion, Syngenta, Bachem, DSM etc.

Biofaction KG is a technology assessment and science communication company (SME) based in Vienna, Austria. Biofaction has significant expertise in responsible research and innovation, science communication, film production, and the study of ethical, legal and social issues in a number of emerging sciences and technology such as genetic engineering, synthetic biology, converging technology, sustainable use of genetic resources. Biofaction provides expertise and service in: technology assessment of new and emerging (bio)technologies, art and science collaboration, film and video production on science and technology, science communication, managing the science-society interface, stakeholder engagement and citizen science.
The Université Pierre et Marie Curie (UPMC) is the first French Center of higher education in the Shanghai ranking. It is a Science University covering all fields of hard science as well as medicine. UPMC includes several prestigious Departments such as the Institut Parisien de Chimie Moléculaire/Parisian Institute for Molecular Chemistry (http://www.ipcm.fr/). This is a joint research unit between UPMC (University Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris 6) and the CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) which develops research activities encompassing the wide area of molecular chemistry and bring together both knowledge and know-how related to many complementary fields within the framework of multi-scale molecular chemistry. Among these, the variety of research areas ranges from inorganic and organic chemistry and expands to the borders with biology, material chemistry and more generally the area of molecular nanosciences and polymer sciences.

 

UoG is one of the most prestigious in the UK, with over 550 years of achievement the University (established in 1451) is the fourth oldest in the UK. In recent history the Chemistry Department of Glasgow has had four Noble Prizes associated with the members who have worked in the Department and today the Department is going from strength to strength, most importantly through the WestCHEM Research School.

The WestCHEM Research School combines research activity in both the Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde Chemistry Departments and together includes more than 60 research-active academics, and an overall graduate school of more than 200 Ph.D. students. Established in July 2005, WestCHEM provides a vehicle for a sustainable internationally excellent Research School in chemical sciences and operates in the core areas of Chemistry and at interfaces with biological, medicinal, physical and materials sciences. The School has a current research income of around 40 million € from a wide range of sources including the national research councils (EPSRC, BSRC), industry, charities, Government and the EU.

 

The Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) was established as a public university in 1990 in the city of Barcelona. Committed from its beginnings to the pursuit of excellence, it holds 22 undergraduate programs, 91 master courses and 9 doctoral degrees in the fields of biomedical sciences, social sciences and humanities and communication and information technologies. The UPF has the following indicators: European 9th best (University U-Multirank 2015); 12th best university in the world among those under 50 years (Times Higher Education Ranking 2015); 1st Spanish university in productivity in teaching and research (U-Ranking 2014); 1st Spanish university quality of scientific production and 1st Spanish university in normalized impact, the 1st in percentage of articles published in international collaboration and the 2nd percentage of articles published in the most influential journals, those located in the first quartile (Ranking Scimago 2014). The proposal will be carried out in the Department of Experimental and Health Sciences (DCEXS) of the UPF.