The ICREA professor and researcher at the Department of Medicine and Life Sciences of Pompeu Fabra University, who directs the Laboratory of Evolutionary Genomics at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology, the European Genome-Phenome Archive (EGA) at the Centre for Genomic Regulation, and the Pasqual Maragall Foundation and its research centre, has been appointed a numerary member of the Royal Academy of Sciences and Arts of Barcelona (RACAB). Navarro, who has received medal number 35, is the first data science expert to enter the biology section as a numerary academic. 

In his keynote speech, entitled “Big data in biology, genomics, health and evolution”, the evolutionary biologist placed special emphasis on the work he has carried out in recent years at the head of the EGA project and explained that “at present there is no scientific progress without data sharing. Therefore, and in a very rigorous sense, the human future will [either] be shared or will not be [at all]”. 

There is no scientific progress without data sharing. Therefore, and in a very rigorous sense, the human future will [either] be shared or will not be [at all]
 

The entrance ceremony, held this Thursday evening at the headquarters of the Royal Academy of Sciences and Arts of Barcelona, on the Rambla, was attended by Laia de Nadal, rector of Pompeu Fabra University; Cristina Maragall, president of the Pasqual Maragall Foundation; Andreu Mas-Colell and Josep Maria Argimon, former ministers of the Government of Catalonia, and Josep Maria Martorell, associate director of the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre.