Lars Montelius is the new director of INL - a "gem"

In his presentation as the new Director of the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory (INL), Lars Montelius, a Swedish physicist with more than 20 years' work in the field of nanosciences, identified the challenge facing the center as that of "making INL truly an international beacon, clearly visible not only to Portugal and Spain, but also to Europe, the USA and Asia".

To meet this challenge, the new director highlighted the great opportunity that INL has to start closer regional cooperation, interact with society and make more local connections, but also from a European and international perspective. "It's a unique place for the development of nanotechnology science. It's a fantastic place to do fantastic research and, in the international context, it's like a rare hidden gem, very few people know about it, but it could become very important for research and innovation, not only for Portugal and Spain, but also from a European point of view," he said.

INL is Europe's first international laboratory dedicated exclusively to nanoscience and nanotechnology. It was created in collaboration by the Portuguese and Spanish governments in 2005 and has been operating since 2009. It carries out research into nanotechnology, with special emphasis on nanomedicine and food and environmental quality control. Over the last three years, the Portuguese government has sought to open up INL to international cooperation, both through links to European initiatives and networks in the field of nanotechnology and by establishing bilateral scientific relations centered on the Laboratory. Agreements signed with China, Brazil, Argentina and Algeria are examples of international collaborations already established.

At the presentation of the new Director, the Secretary of State for Science, Leonor Parreira, thanked the previous Directors for their dedication and excellent work in creating and consolidating the Laboratory, highlighting the "new cycle that we want to be both open to the outside world and also integrated into the national and regional development policies of Portugal and Spain".

The governments of Portugal and Spain appointed a prestigious committee made up of four members of the international science and innovation community, who were given the task of selecting, without any nationality restrictions, the person to head INL. Lars Montelius was selected and took up his post on September 1, 2014, for a period of five years. He is Professor of Nanotechnology at Lund University, Sweden, with specific interests in the interaction of nanotechnology with Life Sciences, especially in the area of neuronanosciences. He has published more than 165 scientific articles and 22 patents, and has also founded several technology-based companies in this area. Between 2009 and 2011 he was director of the Oresund Science Region, a cooperation initiative between Sweden and Denmark, which involves 12 universities, various regional entities, six science parks, 2,000 companies and 12,000 researchers.