The Universitat Jaume I of Castelló has secured nearly one million euros for five projects under the competitive call for grants aimed at strengthening research careers, within the Human Resources programme of the 2024–2027 State Plan for Scientific, Technical and Innovation Research. This achievement places the UJI fourth nationally and first in the Valencian Community in terms of funding obtained in this call, behind only the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), the University of Barcelona and the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, and ahead of larger universities.
The 2025 call awarded a total of 130 grants worth almost 25 million euros. Its aim is to support the consolidation of the professional careers of national and international researchers within the Spanish System for Science, Technology and Innovation (SECTI), through the creation of permanent positions and by facilitating the launch or strengthening of research lines via funding for R&D&I projects and the improvement of laboratories, facilities and scientific equipment.
The elected Rector of the public university of Castelló and acting Vice-Rector for Research, Jesús Lancis, welcomed the results and stated that they confirm “the success of the Universitat Jaume I’s strategy for attracting research talent”.
The UJI has implemented several measures to attract and support research talent through its Research and Knowledge Transfer Promotion Plan, including support for recruiting researchers, predoctoral grants, internal research initiation grants for undergraduate and master’s students, and co-funding for contracts obtained through regional and national calls.
UJI PROJECTS
The project “Guided reduction of overparameterised MLPs for efficient inference in Transformers” (GROVER) , led by Manuel F. Dolz, seeks to improve the efficiency of Transformer-based neural networks by reducing computational and energy costs. The project, within the field of computer science and information technology, aims to reduce inference times and energy consumption by 20%, as well as memory requirements by 25%.
“The processing of time during the mental exploration of memories” (TIEMPO) , led by Raphael Kaplan from the Department of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, investigates how the brain flexibly scales the duration of events and studies how event durations are stored and manipulated in memory. The project aims to better understand the role of time as a central component of episodic memory and how temporal processing may fail during illness.
“Urban and environmental water surveillance to reveal antimicrobial resistance dynamics and improve interventions” (AquaSurv) , led by Lubertus Bijlsma from the Department of Environmental Sciences and Technologies, applies wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) to obtain real-time, population-scale data on health indicators such as antimicrobial use. Although still underused in this field, a single sample can provide a comprehensive profile of antimicrobial compounds and resistance markers.
“Supramolecular ligation through hierarchical three-dimensional self-assembly” (SUPRALITHS) , led by Nishant Singh in the field of Structural Materials, proposes a new class of three-dimensional colloidal crystals built from amorphous organic nanoparticles. The ability to design these superstructures could enable the development of advanced responsive materials for applications in catalysis, gas capture, energy harvesting, drug delivery and water purification.
“Assessment of the impact of air pollution exposure on neurocognitive health during the climacteric period” (NAMASTE) , led by Juana Mari Delgado in the field of Biomedicine, aims to evaluate the relationship between exposure to air pollution and cognitive function, as well as neurobiological biomarkers, in cognitively healthy adults. The study focuses on the climacteric period, when reduced oestrogen levels increase women’s vulnerability, and seeks to identify early mechanisms for preventive action through cognitive and biomarker data.