In conjunction with Accenture, DIA has set up a UPM Joint Technology Centre specializing in artificial intelligence, called AI.nnovation Space. AI.nnovation Space was designed to provide research, innovation and coworking support for joint development and experimentation within a range of industrial application domains. The space is to bused to generate innovative solutions based on artificial intelligence techniques. This technology transfer process includes different stages ranging from the capture, maturing and incubation of ideas and prototyping, through product definition and implementation, to spin-off development and release.

The AI.nnovation Space provides support for the MSc in Artificial Intelligence teaching programme and offers a framework for technology innovation and transfer in artificial intelligence for master’s programme students.

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The EURO-INF quality label is a certificate awarded to a university in respect of a bachelor’s or master’s informatics degree programme assessed according to a series of set standards in accordance with the principles of quality, relevance, transparency, recognition and mobility as provided for in the European Higher Education Area.

The Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence received the EURO-INF quality label on 26 June 2016.

The EURO-INF quality label is a certificate awarded to a university in respect of a bachelor’s or master’s informatics degree programme assessed according to a series of set standards in accordance with the principles of quality, relevance, transparency, recognition and mobility as provided for in the European Higher Education Area.

The European Quality Assurance Network for Informatics Education (EQANIE) has been the European association regulating the award the EURO-INF quality label since 2009. This quality label is recognized internationally and promotes academic and professional mobility, as it identifies high quality informatics programmes inside and outside Europe.

As of autumn 2013, ACREDITA PLUS began to offer the option of applying for the assessment of official bachelor’s and master’s informatics degree programmes for the EURO-INF quality label within the informatics field at the same time as they are assessed for renewal of degree programme accreditation.

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The Spanish Royal Academy of Engineering has distinguished two members of the Technical University of Madrid (UPM) through its 2016 awards for young researchers and practitioners who have developed key innovations, made outstanding contributions or conducted an exceptional piece of research in any branch of engineering. The Juan López de Peñalver Prize went to Óscar Corcho, full professor at the School of Computer Engineering and co-director of the Ontological Engineering Group. José María Ulloa, a researcher at the Institute of Optolelectronics and Microtechnology, received the Juan López de Peñalver Prize runner-up medal. The awards ceremony is to be held tomorrow.

Óscar Corcho received his Bachelor of Science in Informatics (2000), his Master of Science in Software Engineering (2001) and his PhD in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence (2004) from the UPM. He was awarded the Royal Academy of Engineering Prize in recognition of his contributions to research on the semantic web and linked data, ontological engineering and the application of semantic technologies to a range of domains, including e-science and open science. He is currently coordinating two Marie Curie European actions (SemData and KOPAR) and a Horizon 2020 European programme project (STARS4ALL).

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The Spanish Scientific Society for Informatics awarded the 2015 Aritmel National Prize for Computer Science to Asunción Gómez Pérez, full professor of the Department of Artificial Intelligence at the UPM’s School of Computer Engineering at the awards ceremony held on 14 September within the 2016 Spanish Computer Science Congress (CEDI).

The Aritmel Prize is awarded to researchers aged under 55 years for outstanding scientific service within the field of computer engineering. This distinction recognizes her exceptional scientific contributions to this discipline, focusing on the field of ontological engineering, the semantic web and linked data.

Vice Rector of Research, Innovation and PhD Programmes at the UPM, Asunción Gómez-Pérez leads the university’s Ontological Engineering Group. She regards teamwork as the cornerstone of her career. Therefore, this prize is not only an honour but also a recognition of the job she does within this research group. “Research as a team takes precedence over individualism,” she says, highlighting the group’s strong participation as part of multidisiciplinary teams in national and international competitions, hackathons and datathons. “As a result, we have been able to build a research and innovation ecosystem with differing levels of maturity”, while entering into a “close relationship with the national and European higher education and business fabric,” she adds.

Another of the points valued by the jury who awarded this prize is her participation in international research projects and the fact that the articles that she has published have the highest impact factor of all UPM researchers.

She has coordinated five European projects and has participated as a principal investigator of 24 international projects, most of which were funded under the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh European Framework Programmes. She is now participating in three H2020 Programme projects.

A commitment to internationalization has been a feature of the research that Asunción Gómez-Pérez has conducted, ever since, after completing her PhD, she was granted a one-year postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University’s Knowledge Systems Laboratory. “The experiences and skills that I gained at Stanford University and around the Silicon Valley changed my professional career. I came to understand just what an intellectual challenge it is to research on the frontier of knowledge in a very competitive environment, and I learned that it takes a great deal of training, ideas, ability, earnestness and passion and especially funding to be able to compete internationally,” she claims.

Some of the latest milestones in her career highlighted by the prize jury are her participation as principal investigator in the first project to use IBM-Watson at a Spanish university. This project is financed by IBM-USA and was won through the Shared University Research (SUR) Awards. On the other hand, the United Kingdom’s Open Data Institute funded by Tim Berners Lee selected the Ontology Engineering Group as the node’s head office in Madrid.

This distinction is another trophy to add to the 2015 Ada Byron Prize for Women in Technology and the 2015 UPM Research Award.

In this interview, Asunción Gómez-Pérez looks back on her career, analysing the state of research and higher education in this country and outlines her future challenges.

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