The Instituto de Ciencia Molecular (ICMol) of the University of Valencia has been awarded two grants in the 2026 call of the GenT2 Programme of the Generalitat Valenciana, aimed at attracting and consolidating research talent at different stages of the scientific career.

According to the provisional resolution of the Directorate General for Science and Innovation, ICMol has been granted funding under the CIDEGENT modality, awarded to Joaquín Soriano López, a researcher at the institute in the area of Chemical Sciences and Technologies. This modality is intended for the recruitment of outstanding postdoctoral researchers. In addition, Isabel Abánades Lázaro, group leader of the DREAM group at ICMol, has been selected for a JIGENT 2026 grant, targeted at early-career researchers of excellence.

Joaquín Soriano López obtained his PhD in 2016 from the Institut Català d’Investigació Química (ICIQ) – Universitat Rovira i Virgili, under the supervision of José Ramón Galán-Mascarós and Josep Maria Poblet. His doctoral research focused on the design and study of water oxidation catalysts based on polyoxometalates, combining experimental and computational approaches. He later joined the group of Wolfgang Schmitt at Trinity College Dublin as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie researcher (EDGE programme), where he developed new families of catalysts through the molecular engineering of multimetallic polyoxometalates, biomimetic manganese oxide clusters, and electrochemically synthesised photoactive metal–organic frameworks. In 2021, he was awarded a CIDEGENT grant from the GenT Programme and joined the group of Eugenio Coronado at ICMol. His current research focuses on the integration of functional molecules with two-dimensional materials for applications in clean energy conversion and advanced electronic devices.

Isabel Abánades Lázaro (Guadalajara, 1992) is a Ramón y Cajal researcher at the Institute of Molecular Science (ICMol), University of Valencia, where she leads the Defect Engineering of Responsive Advanced Materials (DREAM) group. She obtained her PhD in Chemistry from the University of Glasgow (2018), and her research focuses on defect engineering in metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) for applications in catalysis, drug delivery, water treatment, and gas storage. Among other distinctions, she has received the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Award, the RSEQ-Lilly Early Career Researcher Award, and has been selected to participate in the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings.

These grants are part of a competitive programme promoted by the Generalitat Valenciana to attract, consolidate, and stabilise scientific talent in the Valencian Community. In this context, their award strengthens the capacity of the Institute of Molecular Science at the University of Valencia to develop advanced research lines and reinforce its scientific structure.

The GenT Programme is part of the Generalitat Valenciana’s strategy to strengthen the regional R&D&I system by supporting excellent research talent.