The National Cancer Research Center (CNIO) has a deficit of around 4.5 million euros and problems purchasing all the equipment its researchers need, but the cause, according to those responsible, is not that the money has been invested in works of art, as some media have published, and deny that the flagship of Spanish public research has stopped being competitive, as others say.
“It is not true that the CNIO is not shining scientifically and the accounting deficit is due to the fact that we have stabilized 120 workers without increasing our nominal subsidy,” explained its director, Maria Blascoin an appearance before journalists. This annual budget, of about 22 million euros, has remained stable for two decades and an increase in the General State Budgets, pending approval, was planned. “This allocation was the same 20 years ago, when we had 100 workers, as it is now when we have 700,” indicates the center’s deputy director. Oscar Fernandez Capetillo.
The allocation to the CNIO was the same 20 years ago, when we had 100 workers, as it is now when we have 700.”
Oscar Fernandez Capetillo
— Deputy Director of the CNIO
For her part, the Minister of Science, Diana Morant, assured this Friday that the CNIO “is having the largest collection of public funds, both national and international, in history” and recalled that in all the calls for the improvement of equipment the CNIO has received funding. “In the last one he received a million euros to renew three teams,” he said.
“The CNIO does not buy art”
The CNIO management team has defended itself against recent publications such as that of the newspaper ABC, which stated that the CNIO “almost a million was spent on a project to buy art” and that of El País, which this Friday reported the discontent of several research heads of the center due to the “state of abandonment” of an institution “on the edge of the precipice”, according to these same sources.
“It is categorically not true that the CNIO buys works of art,” Blasco assures questions from elDiario.es. “The project CNIO art It is a finalist initiative, that is, we have private financiers who give us the money to produce a work. In no case does the CNIO buy any work of art.” That million euros comes from agreements with companies such as Santander and with public entities such as the Cervantes Institute and the FECYT, and a part of those income has been used to hire researchers, Blasco alleges.
Equipment shortage
Regarding criticism over the shortage of material equipment, such as the complaint that the CNIO only has one of its four confocal microscopes left, the center’s management recalls that the money it can spend each year is limited to one million euros and They must establish priorities. “Many times it is impossible to buy all the equipment that is needed and what we prioritize is based on needs,” says Blasco. For this reason, after one of the microscopes recently broke down, he explains, the solution adopted was to rent another one in 2025.
Many times it is impossible to buy all the equipment that is needed and what we prioritize is based on needs.
Maria Blasco
— Director of the CNIO
The decision on where to invest the money is made by the Committee of Program Directors, in which all the heads of the center’s scientific programs and the director are present and establishes a prioritization of what is most urgent at that moment, Fernando Peláez recalled. , director of the CNIO Biotechnology program. “This year’s star equipment has clearly been a mass spectrometer, for the proteomics unit, and it is something that we had to do because the previous equipment was obsolete,” he added. “In the end, every year we can only accommodate instrumentation that makes some happy and the rest sad,” says Fernández Capetillo.
Blasco does not resign
The director of the CNIO has assured that she is not considering resigning from her position and has recalled that her contract is renewed every five years by the institution’s board, in addition to having been evaluated very positively by an independent panel of experts (Science Advisory Board). “It is the board that has to decide if I have to continue or not,” he says. “Every two years we are evaluated by a very demanding external advisory committee, including my role as director; The last time they came was in 2023 and that evaluation praised the scientific excellence of the CNIO.”
Regarding Blasco’s salary, which the works council estimated at 230,000 euros per year, the director of the CNIO assured that “it is much less” and recalled that it was established in the Royal Order of April 12, 2012when Cristóbal Montoro was Minister of Finance. From this legal document it is inferred that Blasco’s salary ranges between a minimum of 75,000 and a maximum of 150,000 euros per year, very far from the figures published to request his resignation.
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