Manuel González Penedo, re-elected as the director of the CITIC at the UDC
- Manuel G. Penedo, who occupies the position since 2014, ratified once again his candidacy in the elections celebrated the past Friday February 13th.
- The CITEEC keeps the same directorship, while the CICA names a new director, the Inorganic Chemistry Chair Carlos Platas.
A Coruña, February 18th, 2026
The Universidade da Coruña has just held elections in the Research Centre for Information and Communication Technologies (CITIC), the Interdisciplinary Centre for Chemistry and Biology (CICA), and the Centre for Technological Innovation in Building and Civil Engineering (CITEEC); a process framed by the application of the new Statutes of the UDC.
Fo9llowing an election day in which there were only one candidate in each of the three centres, the process concluded with the provisional proclamation of the previous directors of the CITIC, Manuel González Penedo, and the CITEEC, Fernando Martínez Abella, who will retain their positions. At CICA, the centre’s research staff supported the candidacy of Carlos Platas, who will replace Jaime Rodriguez, his predecessor in this role.
Manuel González Penedo Continues as Director of CITIC
In the case of the CITIC, Manuel G. Penedo has been reappointed as scientific director, a position he has held since 2014, enjoying strong support from all sectors of the centre.
Since taking the helm, Penedo has focused his work on consolidating the research centre as a benchmark at the institutional and scientific level. Under his leadership, CITIC was recognized as a Singular Research Centre by the Xunta de Galicia, a designation it currently maintains as a Centre of Excellence and a member of the CIGUS Network.
As the director of the CITIC, his strategic priorities have been focused on promoting talent attraction, innovation and technology transfer policies, creating infrastructure and support services, and the internal organisation of research groups; as well as boosting and promoting both national and international projects, such as the creation of the “AIRExS” unit associated to the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC); or the collaborative programs with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
New leadership at CICA
Following the decision of the current director, Jaime Rodríguez, not to run in this election, CICA had only one candidate for the position: researcher Carlos Platas, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the UDC.
Carlos Platas Iglesias holds a PhD in Chemistry from the University of A Coruña. He completed predoctoral research stays at the Universities of Coimbra (Portugal) and Lausanne (Switzerland), and postdoctoral research also at Lausanne and Delft University of Technology (Netherlands), working on rare earth chemistry for biomedical applications. In 2019, he was a visiting professor at MGH-Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA, as recipient of a grant from the prestigious program Fulbright
Platas has been part of CICA since its inception, as the main investigator of the IMMO-TEP group, which develops metallic compounds for biomedical applications in diagnostic imaging and therapy. One of his most significant contributions to his field was the discovery of MACROPA, the reference platform for actinium-225 targeted radiotherapy, which is currently in clinical development. He has published over 330 articles in international journals (h-index 53).
At the Universidade da Coruña, he has held various academic positions, where he has been a Full Professor since 2021. He also served as Secretary of the Faculty of Sciences at the UDC from 2005 to 2009 and is currently the Head of the Department of Chemistry. He is also a GRADSchool tutor, certified by the British organization CRAC Vitae.
The CITEEC re-elects Fernando Martínez Abella
The CITEEC research centre’s election process resulted in the re-election of its current director, Fernando Martínez Abella, who received broad support from the centre’s community. This outcome consolidates the strategic project developed in recent years and reinforces a line of work focused on research excellence, talent attraction and strengthening international outreach.
The re-elected director has extensive academic and university management experience. He earned his PhD from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in 1993 and spent his career at the Universidade da Coruña, where he held positions such as Vice rector, School director, and Department Chair. A full professor since 2003, he leads the Construction Group (gCONS) and has developed a robust research line in the field of construction engineering, with a strong experimental focus and close collaboration with the professional sector, participating in and coordinating numerous competitive and technology transfer projects.
Throughout his career, he has promoted key infrastructure projects such as the CITEEC Construction Laboratory, contributing to the consolidation of unique scientific capabilities in the field of civil engineering. Since 2021, he has dealt with the scientific direction of the centre, leading a strengthening process that has allowed for the improvement of its performance indicators and the advancement of its strategic goal of achieving accreditation as a Centre of Excellence within the CIGUS Network.
