Dr. Rubén Costa has been awarded one of the 2018 Leonardo Grants to Researchers and Cultural Creators by the BBVA Foundation. Leonardo Grants are intended to directly support personnal projects of researchers and cultural creators in intermediate stages of their professional careers, between 30 and 45 years, which present a highly innovative scientific, tecnological or cultural production. Grants are awarded in a variety of fields such as Basic Sciences, Biology, Environmental and Earth Sciences, Biomedicine, Information and Communication Sciences, Humanities, Plastic and Digital Arts and Literary Creation and Theatre.

Giving these grants the name of Leonardo da Vinci is a strategy to emphasize the characteristical attributes of this universal figure of the cultural world, such as the passion for knowledge, the opennes and continuous exploration of new fields and problems, the interaction between theoretical and experimental work, as well as the dialogue and retrofeeding between nature and life sciences domains, technology, humanities and arts. The Leonardo Grants are therefore addressed to facilitate the development of highly personnal projects that tackle significant and groundbreaking aspects of todays complex and interdisciplinary world.

In the 2018 call, 64 grants have been awarded with a maximum amount of 40.000 € each.