The Ambassador, accompanied by the Cultural and Scientific Counsellor, spent three days with the University Authorities. He also met with Spanish academics and students, and gave a conference on Spain.
The trip began on March 13th at the prestigious Queen's College, in which the Ambassador was given a tour by Mauro Guillén, Dean of the Cambridge Judge Business School College. Afterwards, the Spanish Representative was received at Corpus Christi College by its President and Vice President, Chris Howe and Philippa Hosting, and by Dr. Jesús Sanjurjo.
In the afternoon, the Ambassador met up with Professors Ángeles Carreres and María Noriega at Selwyn College and talked with students from the Spanish and Portuguese Department. The Ambassador then went on to the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research to learn about the work of Professor Marcos Martiñón-Torres, and various Spanish scientists. He then visited Porters Lodge Downing College, where he spoke with researchers who received scholarships from the Rafael del Pino Foundation, and met with Nicoló Crisafi, Director of Modern Languages at Pembroke College.
The programme for the second day began at the Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS), where he was received by the Director and Deputy Drector, Jude Brown and Glen Rangwala.
The visit continued to the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB), where Professors Marta Shahbazi Alonso and Daniel Muñoz Espín work. The Ambassador also visited the Centre for Molecular Biology and the Centre for Stem Cells. Professor Albert Cardona, who works at the Centre, has collaborated in a recent mapping of the brain of a fruit fly larva, discovering a structure with 3 016 neurons and 548 000 connections.
In the afternoon, after visiting the Fitzwilliam Museum accompanied by the Director, Luke Syson, the Ambassador gave a lecture on Spain at the old Pembroke College library on global challenges and his own diplomatic experience, which was attended by numerous students and Professors of international relations.
He then moved on to Trinity College, where he visited the Wren Library, which stocks extraordinary manuscripts, including various Spanish books.
On March 15th the Ambassador met with the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. They talked about the challenges of the University and the collaboration with Spanish institutions.