The Diplomat
Yesterday, King Philip VI presided over the meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Elcano Royal Institute for International and Strategic Studies, of which he is Honorary President.
Among the attendees were José Juan Ruiz, President of the Royal Elcano Institute; Nadia Calviño, Third Vice President of the Government and Minister of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation; Margarita Robles, Minister of Defense; Ángeles Moreno Bau, State Secretary for Foreign and Global Affairs; José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, former Prime Minister; Miguel Arias Cañete, representative of the Popular Party in the Board of Trustees; María Dolores de Cospedal, Vice President of the Royal Elcano Institute; Enrique V. Iglesias, former Ibero-American Secretary General; and Emilio Lamo de Espinosa, former President of the Elcano Royal Institute; as well as representatives of the companies that are members of the Board of Trustees, the academic world and the Think Tank itself.
The event, held at the Palacio Real de la Quinta de El Pardo, in Madrid, began with a few words from the President of the Elcano Royal Institute, in which he highlighted the major improvements in the work of the organization: “We have strengthened our corporate governance, reformed our statutes to expand our capacity for growth, we have incorporated new researchers, we have equipped ourselves with a new and powerful technological platform, we have launched new knowledge products, revised our research agenda and, now, we are beginning the process of transforming our Scientific Council”.
José Juan Ruiz placed special emphasis on “one of the main advances of this year”, the Equality Strategy. Last November, work began to draw up a Strategy for Equality of Women and Men 2022-2026, whose main objective is to implement specific measures that will accelerate the achievement of effective equality of men and women in the Institution and which contemplates a total of 25 specific measures in multiple areas, ranging from recruitment and career progression to training, or remuneration. “This strategy will enable the Institute to compete in the best conditions for competitive calls for funding for research projects of excellence, particularly at the European level,” said the institution.
Ruiz also highlighted that, in 2021, the Elcano Royal Institute intensified the international projection of its studies and analysis and its capacity to influence abroad through the Elcano Office in Brussels, collaborations with foreign research centers, the impact on foreign press and the internationalization of its digital content. The Institute’s growing international influence has also translated into increased attention in foreign media: of the 4,920 mentions in the press, 43% were in foreign media, totaling 2,120 mentions in 89 countries, 79% more than in 2020.
The President of the Elcano Institute welcomed the company Solaria, which joins as a Trustee of the Elcano Royal Institute, and thanked the Board of Trustees for its constant support to the institution. “Our commitment remains to consolidate ourselves as a space that, in the face of post-truth and polarization, offers independent analysis and dialogue,” he said. “A is how we understand our founding mission: to be a center that contributes rigorous analysis based on science and data, in order to create spaces for debate and consensus that generate solutions to our problems,” he added.
The session concluded with a speech by Luis Simón, Director of the EIR Office in Brussels on The war in Ukraine and the NATO Summit, which was followed by a debate among the attendees.
