Cristina Garmendia

With no previous political career, she was appointed as Minister of Science and Innovation in April 2008[1] by the President of the Government of Spain, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

[2] With a PhD in biology from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, before her election as a minister, she was the president of the Inbiomed Foundation and the Spanish Society of Bio enterprises.

She received her PhD from the Severo Ochoa Molecular Biology Center at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid under the guidance of Professor Margarita Salas.

In 1992, as vice president and CFO, she was in charge on various responsibilities related to business development of Grupo Amasua, dedicated to the fishing industry.

The work of Garmendia was pioneer in that field as it helped lay the foundations in the Spanish biotechnology industry, transferring research outputs to the private sector.

Garmendia has held positions of CEO, managing director of Genetrix, and in parallel, also promoted other business projects like Cellerix, Biotherapix, Sensia, Imbiosis, Biobide, BioAlma and Coretherapix.

On April 11, 2008, the president of the Spanish Government, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, elected Garmendia as holder of a new ministry, Minister of Science and Innovation, which was going to be created during the IX term of office.

Although it contained reforms heavily demanded by the scientific community, like the creation of the Research State Agency and the replacement of a contract of employment instead of scholarship, the law received a lot of criticism from some scientists.

In terms of great infrastructures, during term of office of Mrs. Garmendia new infrastructures where inaugurated —the Gran Telescopio Canarias (a 10.4m telescope with a segmented primary mirror in the island of La Palma), the Spanish National Center of Human Evolution (Burgos) and the Synchrotron Light Source in Cerdanyola del Vallès.

After the 2011 elections, Garmendia left her post as Minister of Science and Innovation on December 21, 2011, and returned to her business activities in the private sector.