BOLETÍN FUNDACIÓN BBVA N.º 13 FEBRERO 2008

MEDIOAMBIENTE



NEWSLETTER No. 28

V/2011

Applied Research in Tumor Biomarkers

The BBVA Foundation Brings the Treasures of the Hermitage to the Prado Museum

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Contents Fundación BBVA San Nicolás Building Plaza de San Nicolás, 4 48005 Bilbao Tel.: +34 94 487 52 52 Fax: +34 94 424 46 21 Marqués de Salamanca Palace Paseo de Recoletos, 10 28001 Madrid Tel.: +34 91 374 54 00 Fax: +34 91 374 85 22

HM Queen Sofía of Spain opens the exhibition The Hermitage in the Prado

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Massachusetts General Hospital and the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology join forces in a new anti-cancer program

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Identifying the genetic material that makes tumor stem cells immortal in order to block their action

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Space research provides new insights into health problems here on Earth

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Functional foods and health: between scientific evidence and public controversy

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In search of the genetic key that activates healthy aging through diet

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Gerard 't Hooft: “Finding the Higgs boson would be as big a step forward as finding the missing link”

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“We still don’t know why there is something instead of nothing,” affirms theoretical astrophysicist David Spergel

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Project and editorial management: Carlos Gil Translations: Karen Welch Editorial coordination: Editorial Nerea, S. A. Graphic design and production: Eurosíntesis

Research networks and alliances with health and education can help enlarge the role of protected areas

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The use of ants as a teaching aid among the projects earning a Francisco Giner de los Ríos Award

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Territorial differences in public spending and their impact on equal opportunity and fiscal consolidation

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Legal deposit: SS-1318/06

The BBVA and Antón García Abril foundations publish the complete piano and voice works of the Teruel composer

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Four new titles join the Sibila-Fundación BBVA Library of Spanish-Language Poetry

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MISCELLANY

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NEW PUBLICATIONS

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AGENDA

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[email protected] www.fbbva.es BBVA Foundation Newsletter No. 28, V/2011 Distributed free of charge

The opinions and conclusions expressed in this newsletter are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the BBVA Foundation. An electronic version of this newsletter is available at www.fbbva.es

FORUM. Dr. Fermina Rojo-Pérez and Dr. Gloria Fernández-Mayoralas The living conditions of the aging population 32

NEWS

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BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 28 - V/2011

Francisco González, President of the BBVA Foundation, HM Queen Sofía and Culture Minister Ángeles González-Sinde contemplate Canova’s sculpture The Penitent Magdalene.

HM Queen Sofía of Spain opens the exhibition The Hermitage in the Prado O

n November 7, Her Majesty the Queen of Spain opened the exhibition The Hermitage in the Prado, sponsored by the BBVA Foundation and co-organized with Acción Cultural Española. Accompanying her at the event were BBVA Foundation President Francisco González, Spain’s Minister of Culture, Ángeles González-Sinde, the Russian Minister of Culture, Alexander Avdeyev, the President of the Madrid Regional Government, Esperanza Aguirre, and the President of Acción Cultural Española, Charo Otegui. Other personalities in attendance included the Mayor of Madrid, Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, the President of the Royal Board of Trustees of the Prado Museum, Plácido Arango, the Prado’s Director, Miguel Zugaza, the Director of the BBVA Foundation, Rafael Pardo, and the Assistant Director of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Georgy Vilinbakhov.

Comprising almost 180 works from the Russian museum’s celebrated collections of paintings, drawings and sculptures, in addition to a large and remarkable group of archaeological items, examples of the decorative arts, furniture and court dress, The Hermitage in the Prado will be open every day of the week for an exceptional four-and-a-half months, until March 25, 2012. The show itself marks the conclusion of a unique exchange between these two great museums that are not only equal in importance but have similar origins as repositories of the former royal collections of their respective nations. Both exhibitions fall within the framework of the bilateral Spain-Russia Year 2011. With the new exhibition occupying all the temporary galleries in its extension wing, the Museo del Prado – like the Hermitage before it in the first leg of the cultural exchange – offers visitors the chance to

see one museum inside another, including not only many of the Hermitage’s most famous works of art and archaeological items, a sizeable expression of the splendor of its collections, but also objects related to the museum’s own history. The visitor is thus greeted in the opening section by portraits of Peter I, Catherine II and Nicholas I, alongside paintings of the lavish interiors and elegant surroundings of the palace building. This glimpse back at the Hermitage’s origins as an imperial palace is completed by a selection of furniture and court dress, on display in an adjacent room. The large and magnificent selection of paintings, drawings and sculptures assembled for the exhibition includes such notable works as Titian’s Saint Sebastian and Lute Player by Caravaggio. This last title is among the most lyrical of the Milanese artist’s paintings, and so

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From Velázquez to Malevich Among the figures in Velázquez’s Tavern Scene is a child who made an earlier appearance in The Three Musicians, and also shows up in An Old Woman Cooking Eggs and The Waterseller of Seville, his semblance altering gradually with the passing of the years. Also on display are two works from the Hermitage’s impressive Rembrandt collection, Portrait of a Scholar and The Fall of Haman.

Bouquet of Cornflowers with Ears of Corn in a Vase. STATE HERMITAGE MUSEUM

finely executed that it is possible to tell that the score resting on the table corresponds to four madrigals by Flemish composer Jacques Arcadelt.

Comb with Battle Scene (5th-4th century BC). SUCESIÓN PABLO PICASSO. VEGAP. MADRID, 2011

The Fall of Haman, Rembrandt (1660-1665).

STATE HERMITAGE MUSEUM

BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 28 - V/2011

STATE HERMITAGE MUSEUM

STATE HERMITAGE MUSEUM

NEWS

The painting section closes with some splendid examples from the Russian gallery’s celebrated collections of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works, including canvases by masters like Monet, Cézanne, Renoir and Gauguin. Matisse is represented by two paintings, Game of Skittles and Conversation, which brought to European art the idea that an

Seated Woman, Pablo Picasso (1908).

extraordinary expressiveness could be attained with just one color, in this case blue. This is followed by three works of Picasso’s, among them Seated Woman and his Boy with a Dog, set in the world of travelling players, which conveys a complex mix of sadness and companionship. And also from the past century, two Russian avant-garde abstract works, Composition VI by Kandinsky and Malevich’s Black Square. But the State Hermitage Museum does not end with painting, and even this array of masterworks can only hint at the treasures it contains. The exhibition accordingly finds room for some select pieces from its astonishing collection of

SUCESIÓN PABLO PICASSO. VEGAP. MADRID, 2011

Te avae no Maria (The Month of Mary), Paul Gauguin (1899).

The museum’s drawing collection is represented by works of Durer, Rubens, Watteau and Ingres, while the sculptures on loan include Bernini’s study in terracotta for The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, and The Penitent Magdalene, a marble figure that is among Antonio Canova’s finest works. In contrast to the Baroque masters, who tend to depict the saint in ecstasy, Canova shows her in a moment of despair in an expressive pose that is at the same time exquisitely natural.

Boy with a Dog, Pablo Picasso (1905).

NEWS

KEES VAN DONGEN. VEGAP. MADRID, 2011

STATE HERMITAGE MUSEUM

BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 28 - V/2011

Women in a Black Hat, Kees van Dongen (1908).

SUCCESSION H. MATISSE/ VEGAP/ 2011.

STATE HERMITAGE MUSEUM

Lute Player, Caravaggio (1595-1596).

Conversation, Henri Matisse (1909-1912).

archeological items, including the unique and priceless Comb with Battle Scene, a gold ornament found lying by the head of a Scythian king from the 4th century BC, very probably Octamasades. Its nineteen teeth are crowned by a sculpture group showing three warriors in the heat of battle, whose dramatism and monumental character belie the size of the object (barely 12.6 centimeters high). The exhibition continues with items of Siberian jewelry from the collections

Tavern Scene, Diego Velázquez (ca. 1617).

of Peter the Great and some other fine pieces from the museum’s magnificent store of decorative arts. Among the most striking among them are a sword embellished with silver, rubies and diamonds presented to the Czar in the 18th century by the Indian Ambassador, and the beautiful Bouquet of Cornflowers with Ears of Corn in a Vase in rock crystal, gold and diamonds, crafted by the imperial jeweler Carl Fabergé (1846-1920), whose work found disciples the world over.

The exhibition itinerary, finally, is marked out by a series of splendid hardstone vessels, each of them the work of a Russian master.

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BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 28 - V/2011

Massachusetts General Hospital and the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology join forces in a new anti-cancer program T

he President of the BBVA Foundation, Francisco González, José Baselga, Chief of Hematology/ Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center (MGHCC), and Andrés de Kelety, Managing Director at the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO) in Barcelona, met on November 15 to sign the agreement creating the BBVA Foundation Tumor Biomarkers Research Program. Also attending the event was the Foundation’s Director, Rafael Pardo. Under the terms of this agreement, the BBVA Foundation will fund the collaborative efforts of MGHCC and VHIO to develop personalized therapies for cancer patients through biomarker research. The work of the program will focus on new drug discovery and the improvement or optimized use of existing pharmaceutical therapies – with the common goals of securing more effective, individually tailored treatments and of accelerating their translation to the clinic, and thereby patient care.

“Thanks to this program, we can track exactly how the tumor is responding to treatment, and orchestrate an intelligent attack” “Cancer is a genuine public health problem. By 2030 it is reckoned that 21.4 million people worldwide will be diagnosed with the disease, of whom 13.2 million will die. These figures represent an increase of 69% and 72% respectively over the year 2008,” remarks Baselga, adding that in Spain cancer is now the leading cause of death between the ages of 35 and 70, ahead of cardiovascular conditions. Biomarkers are biological characteristics of malignant cells, normally of a genetic nature. The information they give can

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In the middle, José Baselga, Chief of Hematology/Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital and BBVA Foundation President Francisco González, flanked by Rafael Pardo, Director of the BBVA Foundation (left), and Andrés de Kelety, Managing Director of the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology.

be prognostic – how a disease is likely to evolve – or predictive, indicating how it may respond to a given treatment. “Understanding the mechanisms that cause a cell to turn malignant is the first vital step in battling the disease,” Baselga continues, and biomarkers enable the design of personalized therapies that act precisely on this alteration. One recent example is the discovery that “mutations in the B-RAF gene have been found to be present in 40% of metastatic melanomas. This observation led to the development of the drug PLX4032, which inhibits this alteration with a response rate of 65%. The result has been to transform the treatment of metastatic skin cancer, for which very few options were hitherto available. In our research work in progress, we have 15 or 20 molecules of a promise comparable to B-RAF.” From the images on the next page we can appreciate the reduced presence of metastatic melanoma (black patches) after just two

weeks of treatment with the molecule, a fruit of the knowledge supplied by biomarkers. Both the researcher and his center are confident that biomarkers “are the key to the future. Soon it will be more important to know whether a tumor goes along with a mutation in a given gene (K-RAS, for example) than in which organ it appeared (breast, colon, lung...).” Among the advantages of personalized therapies is that “they zero in on tumor cells and not adjacent cells, which means they are less toxic. And they can also be brought to market quicker because we don’t need to enroll thousands of patients, just those that are likeliest to benefit.” Studies in this case will initially center on colorectal, breast and lung cancer, with the intention of expanding into other types like melanomas, lymphomas or prostate cancer.

A five-year horizon The BBVA Foundation will provide 2.5 million euros funding over the next five years to facilitate synergies between researchers at MGHCC and VHIO under the direction of doctors José Baselga, Daniel Haber (MGHCC) and Josep Tabernero (VHIO). This sum may be revised upward during the life of the program in the light of emerging research needs and according to the economic circumstances of the time. The grant will be split equally between the two centers, with MGHCC matching the BBVA Foundation’s contribution. Both institutions are committed to sharing and exchanging findings, and will place their biomarker platforms in genomics, proteomics and molecular pathology at the disposal of the new program.

“These biomarkers hold the key to the future. It will be more important to know whether a tumor has a mutation in a certain gene than whether it originated in the breast, lung or colon” Baselga is keen to stress the therapeutic possibilities unlocked when leading international centers like MGHCC and VHIO pool their resources in the fight against cancer: “This program will enable us to sequence tumors in greater detail, picking up tiny but important mutations that currently go unnoticed. But we will also be able to ask the tumor at any given time how it is responding to treatment or whether it is resisting its effects through adaptation: with this information at hand, we can orchestrate an intelligent attack”. “We are grateful as well as deeply impressed that the BBVA Foundation is not only maintaining but enlarging its support for this program, along with its broader commitment to research in general, and cancer research in particular, at a time of economic difficulties,” declared Dr. Baselga. The BBVA Foundation President was quick to concur, while adding: “Spain can-

BIOMEDICINE

IMAGE COURTESY OF NATURE

BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 28 - V/2011

These images show the extent of the melanoma before (left) and after (right) two weeks of treatment with PLX4032, a molecule identified through research into biomarkers.

Some promising personalized therapies Type of cancer

Signaling pathway

Drug

Lung

EGFR

Erlotinib

Lung

ALK

Crizotinib

Melanoma

BRAF

PLX4032

Breast, kidney, neuroendocrine

PI3K/mTOR

Everolimus

Breast, stomach

HER 2

Lapatinib, Pertuzumab, Trastuzumab

Breast, sarcoma

IGF1R

Dalotuzumab

Source: Courtesy of José Baselga.

not afford to slip behind in an area where it has already attained a position of some prominence, and where research results can drive tangible improvements in the diagnostic and therapeutic options available to patients.” In today’s climate of budgetary austerity, Francisco González stressed the need “to preserve the core elements of an economy like Spain’s which has no other route map but knowledge and innovation.” In the case of the BBVA Foundation, this translates as “a multipronged program of support for research and the creation of knowledgedriven public goods, with a focus on areas, like health and environmental conservation, in the foreground of citizens’ preferences and expectations.” The

biomarker program stands alongside the BBVA Foundation-supported program of basic cancer research at the Institute for Biomedical Research in Barcelona (IRB) and the BBVA Foundation Cancer Cell Biology Program at the National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO).

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BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 28 - V/2011

Identifying the genetic material that makes tumor stem cells immortal in order to block their action A

team of researchers at Vall d’Hebron Institut de Recèrca (VHIR) headed by Doctor Matilde Lleonart have discovered that small chains of genetic material play an important role in cell immortality and may therefore be recruited for the fight against cancer. These chains of genetic material bear the name of microRNAs and, until recently, science had few clues about how they worked. We now know that they are able to regulate the expression of other genes. And the characterization of microRNA-based therapies will hopefully provide a new arm to eradicate malignant processes, because blocking their function in tumor cells would enable us to induce cell senescence. The results of this study, funded by the BBVA Foundation, have appeared in a review published in Medicinal Research Reviews.

Confirming a suspicion The Oncology and Molecular Pathology research group at VHIR has spent years working on cell aging and cell immortality. The property that makes tumor cells so lethal is precisely this capacity for immortality, which means they neither age nor self destruct in the way of normal, healthy cells. The immortality of cancer cell lines allows tumors to grow uncontrollably thereby multiplying their potential for damage. One of the group’s main goals has been to identify the microRNAs that promote immortality. They can then go on to investigate possible mechanisms to deactivate this eternal youth and turn malignant cells mortal. This avenue is already being explored by certain antitumor treatments based on cellular senescence induction, that is, which lead cells to age, so they are eliminated by the body. We now know that over a third of all the genes making up our genome are regulated by microRNAs. This makes them an obligatory object of study; increas-

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Ana Artero, Andrea Feliciano and Matilde Lleonart, coordinator of the study.

ingly so given the growing conviction of their link with cell immortality. Doctor Lleonart and her team have accordingly set themselves the task of characterizing therapeutic microRNAs of utility in cancer. Their research is focused on inducing cellular senescence as an antitumor mechanism, a process in which microRNAs, these tiny strands of auxiliary genetic material, promise to be crucial. Dr. Lleonart’s group has succeeded in identifying as many as 28 microRNAs with the power to escape or evade the mechanisms of senescence and, by this means, maintain cell replication potential intact. “The most striking thing about this finding is that stem cell-specific microRNAs turn out to be able to evade senescence with greater biological effect than other known microRNA types, thus inducing immortalization,” explains Lleonart, the research coordinator. This fact certainly supports the evidence that cancer stem cells (CSCs) generate tumors as well as feeding them, but it also poses a theoretical approach directed not only at “inhibiting the immortality potential of tumor CSCs but also turning them into senescent cells”.

This research line was initiated with experimental studies comparing stem cells, on one hand, with primary mammalian cells, on the other. Primary cells are those that arrest their replication after undergoing between forty and sixty divisions. In other words, once they stop dividing, they age and die. “The real possibility that a small RNA molecule (anti-miR) may be able to block the action of a CSC-specific microRNA, and that the CSCs may thereby be induced into a sort of metabolic lethargy that strips them of their immortality holds out enormous promise in cancer research,” remarks Dr. Lleonart, going on to conclude that “bearing in mind that CSCs intrinsically possess this immortal quality, inhibiting their specific micro­ RNAs could serve as an anti-cancer treatment target.”

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BIOMEDICINE

Space research provides new insights into health problems here on Earth FUNDACIÓN BBVA

Trials carried out on cell samples under simulated microgravity are already throwing up some surprising results. For instance, “cardiac cells develop tubular structures, opening up a line of study of potential use in tissue engineering,” Grosse relates.

Jirka Grosse, of Regensburg University Hospital (Germany) in a moment of his talk.

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n conventional laboratory cultures, cells appear as two dimensional, and to obtain a three-dimensional structure closer to reality, a special extracellular matrix must be used. However this can be dispensed with in experiments conducted under conditions of microgravity; the research terrain of Daniela Grimm, a professor at the University of Aarhus (Denmark), and Jirka Grosse from the Nuclear Medicine Unit at Regensburg University Hospital (Germany). Jirka Grosse explained some of the results obtained by their international team at the 4th International Symposium on Cardiovascular Health organized by the BBVA Foundation and the Fundación Investigación y Desarrollo Área Cardiovascular. Astronauts suffer a series of health problems due to the weightlessness experienced during space flights. These include particularly loss of bone density and muscle atrophy, activation of normally dormant viruses, absence of normal day/ night cycles and a failing sense of balance. As regards the heart and vascular system, common problems are “alterations of the cardiac muscle, arrhythmias, blood vessel dysfunctions and an impaired ability

to modulate blood pressure in a standing position,” adds Jirka Grosse. These problems have fueled interest in investigating the health impact of microgravity. Part of this research takes place in installations like the International Space Station, but the costs are considerable. The alternatives are to conduct parabolic flights in the Earth’s atmosphere – providing 22 seconds of simulated microgravity – or the use of devices like the random positioning machine and, on occasion, unmanned space flights like China’s experimental mission Shenzhou-8, which has taken up samples of thyroid carcinoma cells to test how they react in weightless conditions. Cell research in space is a comparatively recent phenomenon. Jirka Grosse explains for instance that “although we still do not understand the short-term effects of microgravity on endothelial cells – those coating the inner wall of the vessels supplying the heart muscle – we do know that they are highly sensitive to gravitational changes and that they are a major cause of the heart and vascular problems that astronauts suffer during and after space flights.”

Experiments performed with thyroid cells under microgravity found that they took on spheroid shapes (weightlessnessinduced 3D structures). “On subjecting these cells to proteomic analysis, we encountered 235 different proteins, 37 of which appeared to be first-time identifications in human thyroid cells. Now we are running the same type of analysis with vascular endothelial cells. Differences in how proteins are expressed under microgravity in comparison to normal gravity may affect cell-cell contacts and interactions,” the researcher conjectures. The results may have therapeutic applications. Studies performed to date on thyroid carcinoma cells show an increase in apoptosis (cell death). “If we can find out which mechanisms are behind this phenomenon, we will have taken a step forward in the design of long-term therapies.” The hope is that analyses of the samples carried on the several-week-long Shenzhou-8 flight in comparison with cells from the same cancer line that have remained on Earth, will come up with new data. The space constraints on space flights and the need for telemedicine systems to tend to crews’ health have spurred a series of technical innovations that have also facilitated research efforts. Portable ecographs are just one example, along with “new sensors to measure intraocular pressure or vibration platforms to prevent bone and muscle loss on Earth also,” Grosse concludes.

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he food industry has discovered a rich seam in products that purport to improve bodily functions and reduce the risk of suffering certain diseases. So great is their impact that the frontiers between scientific evidence and marketing have become increasingly blurred, all too often at the former’s expense.

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Functional foods and health: between scientific evidence and public controversy

One of the best known cases is probiotic yoghurts, which promise to improve intestinal transit and boost the body’s defenses by multiplying the bacteria present in the gut. But this claim is not without its detractors. For instance, a study published last October in Science Translational Medicine revealed that the bacteria in these products do not settle in the body and have almost no effect whatsoever on intestinal flora. The research in question was co-funded by Danone Research and the U.S.’s National Institutes of Health. Montaña Cámara, Director of the New Foods Research Group at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

National and supranational authorities are concerned about the possibility of misleading consumers, not through the risk of toxicity – these foods tend to be harmless – but through fraudulent advertising, since the public are demonstrably prepared to pay more for certain varieties of dairy products, cereals and drinks in the light of their perceived health benefits. And their anxieties are by no means unfounded. In Last July, the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) published a report rejecting four out of every five health benefit claims as having no scientific foundation. This, precisely, was the problem addressed by Montaña Cámara, Associate Professor of Nutrition in the Pharmacy School at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, during the 4th International Symposium on Cardiovascular Health co-organized by the BBVA Foundation and the Fundación de Investigación y Desarrollo Área Cardiovascular. Cámara, who heads the New Foods Research Group at the Complutense, took as her topic functional foods and heart disease.

“A functional food is one containing a component with a selective effect on one or several of the body’s functions, with a value-added over and above its nutritional worth, and which can be therefore be marketed as healthful,” she specified. Their benefits may apply to a range of conditions from cancer to diabetes by way of stimulating the immune system, but are always of a preventive nature: “These are foods, not medicines, which means they may reduce risk in healthy individuals but are no alternative to pharmaceutical drugs when a disease has been contracted.”

The preventive power of diet Their importance for the circulatory system is three-fold: although cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death in the developed world, it is no less true that 80% of cases could be prevented through the control of risk factors, starting with diet and continuing, at the smallest of distances, with smoking and lack of regular exercise.

What can functional foods do to promote cardiovascular health? “Basically they act on the fatty deposits on the walls of the blood vessels supplying the heart or brain” (cholesterol, which is found in abundance in animal fats). “They also have an effect on the formation of blood clots,” Professor Cámara continued. The European Union has established a specific legal instrument to ensure that consumers are properly informed, namely Regulation 1924/2006 on nutrition and health claims made on foods. Further, the European Food Safety Agency reviews all applications and accepts or rejects them with regard to three types of claim: actual content (along the lines of “low fat” or “no added sugar”), statement of healthy properties, and reduction in the risk of disease. Montaña Cámara has analyzed a spectrum of authorized functional foods according to this scientific reliability test (see table). One of them is margarine – the first functional food approved by the European Union – whose “plant sterol

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HELENA ZAPKE

esters, taken in the right proportions, reduce LDL cholesterol by between 10% and 15%. Such products must accordingly come with instructions for use. In this case, to obtain the desired effect, the consumer must eat three helpings a day, with each helping corresponding to a slice of toast with 10 grams of margarine.” This is one of the few foods that must be treated with caution: “Plant sterol esters should not be taken by people suffering phytosterolemia. Also, they reduce absorption of vitamin A, so are not recommended for pregnant or breastfeeding women or very young children,” she added. Another kind of action altogether is that of hydroxytyrosol and the oleuropein

complex found in olive oil, which the EFSA has validated for its antioxidant effect on LDL cholesterol (the socalled bad cholesterol). In other words, “it doesn’t lower cholesterol, but does prevent it from oxidizing and thereby damaging the arteries,” the food expert explained. Yet another is that of a branded tomato concentrate used as an ingredient (for instance, in certain multi-fruit juices) whose healthpromoting property is to “reduce platelet aggregation” and thereby mitigate the risk of thrombus formation, one of the causes of ichthus. The EFSA’s reports are publicly available and can be consulted on its website.

A time of transition... and confusion

should be used to supplement natural ingredients and never to replace them.” She also stressed that “the substances that make a food functional are not always effective in drug form. It was observed, for instance, that betacarotene improved the treatment of patients with lung cancer. As these patients often have difficulties taking in food, the nutrient was produced pharmaceutically for ease of administration, but it turned out not to work”. Prof. Camera also spent time discussing the different approaches of the United States and Europe to food and health matters. “In the U.S. evidence that folic acid was effective in preventing spina bifida, if taken before pregnancy, was enough to get it authorized as an additive in breakfast cereals, one of the most widely consumed foodstuffs. In Europe, however, the chosen route was the less interventionist one of publicizing this healthful quality.”

In her talk, Montaña Cámara complained about the lengthening of the transition periods envisaged by EU regulations, which mean that products of proven scientific solvency share retail shelf space with those claiming so far unsubstantiated health benefits, and even some of dubious effectiveness. “Omega-3 acids are much better obtained from their natural source – fish – than from enriched milk products, which hardly ever contain large enough amounts to be effective, and have only limited bioavailability.” She insists, in fact, that “functional foods are a good addition to a varied, balanced diet, but

Examples of functional foods with benefits for cardiovascular health Functional food

Effect

Instructions for use

Remarks

Margarine with plant sterols

Lowers cholesterol levels by between 10% and 15%

Three helpings/day (one helping = slice of toast with 10g of margarine or 0.75 g of plant sterols)

Granted to a registered trademark. Not suitable for pregnant woman and small children

Glucomannan

Regular use helps to regulate cholesterol concentrations in the blood

4 grams/day in one or more doses

Beta-glucans

Regular use helps to regulate cholesterol concentrations in the blood

3 grams/day, normally in one or more helpings of barley or oat cereals

Tomato concentrate

Reduces platelet aggregation in blood and risk of clots

Used as an ingredient in food, drinks and supplements

Granted to a registered trademark

Oat beta-glucans

Lowers blood cholesterol and risk of coronary disease

3 grams/day

For the general population, and particularly individuals at risk of hypercholesterolemia

Olive oil polyphenols

Prevent oxidation of LDL cholesterol and the resulting arterial damage

5 mg/day of hydroxytyrosol and its derivates, present in the quantity of olive oil consumed as part of a balanced diet

Source: Montaña Cámara.

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O

ne of the most promising research areas in molecular biology is epigenetics: a term used to describe chemical changes to DNA that do not affect the DNA sequence or the protein, but do determine whether a particular gene is switched on or off. A growing body of evidence supports applications for epigenetics in the molecular biology of cancer, since the activity of many tumors responds to alterations in certain genes. It is also bound in with nutrition, another field whose star has been rising in the last decade, for these chemical reactions leave marks – epigenetic marks – that are “carried in the memory of cells as they divide, but are not completely fixed, and can be affected by various factors including diet.” This was the definition offered by Dianne Ford, Professor of Molecular Nutrition at the Human Nutrition Centre of Newcastle University (United Kingdom), during the 4th International Symposium on Cardiovascular Health.

HELENA ZAPKE

Professor Ford provided an overview of the scientific studies which, since 2008, have found that diet influences DNA methylation (one of the chemical changes that leaves epigenetic marks) which, in turn, affects the expression of genes relevant to health and aging, for the benefit of

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In search of the genetic key that activates healthy aging through diet

Dianne Ford, Human Nutrition Centre, Newcastle.

the specialists attending the event organized by the BBVA Foundation and the Fundación de Investigación y Desarrollo Área Cardiovascular. “There is now growing evidence that the mother’s diet during pregnancy can affect the health of her offspring later in life,” Ford continues. “For example, there is a tendency for babies with low weight at birth to go on to develop features of the ‘metabolic syndrome’, including obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure.” And these effects come about, precisely, because “epigenetic marks are copied (or ‘remembered’) as the cells divide throughout life”. Experiments in animals amply endorse the relationship between diet and health. “Restricting protein intake in pregnant rats affects the hepatic function not only of their offspring but also of the next generation. Another example is bees. Queen bees live twenty times longer than workers, though they are all born the same. The basic difference between them lies in what they eat; the nutritional advantage of the royal jelly that queens feed off over the diet of the worker bees,” she adds.

The power of dietary restriction Further, experimental models with yeast, flies and rodents have shown that eating less increases lifespan. Indeed trials carried out in rodents and primates found “a reduction in the incidence of chronic diseases, and many changes associated with healthier aging, such as increased insulin sensitivity, reduced plasma inflammatory cytokines, less cellular debris (oxidiased lipids, damaged protein, etc.),” the researcher pointed out. And certain epidemiological studies in humans point credibly in this same direction. According to studies conducted in Dianne Ford’s laboratory, Sirt1, a protein of the sirtuin family “causes a type of DNA methylation that acts on some of the genes activated by dietary restriction,” suggesting that it may have a significant role in healthy aging processes, although she cautions that “we still do not understand the exact mechanism at work”. This Newcastle University professor is confident that, in the medium to long run, “major advances will be made in terms of detecting particular ‘patterns’ of DNA methylation that are linked to age-related

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BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 28 - V/2011

diseases and aging in better condition (in other words, epigenetic biomarkers of healthy aging). It will then be possible to focus some of the research on the ability of certain dietary components to affect DNA methylation on identifying components that alter these specific patterns so that they become similar to the patterns observed in healthy older people”.

The resveratrol controversy

Sirt1 protein causes a type of DNA methylation that acts on some of the genes activated by dietary restriction, suggesting that it may have a significant role in healthy aging processes

made in mammals show convincingly that resveratrol does manage to reduce several features of aging. At high doses, it may be able to protect against some of the deterioration brought by aging, but through unknown mechanisms that are unrelated to sirtuins”. While firm in her judgment that “resveratrol or some of its derivates can emulate the effect of dietary restriction,” she also warns that “very long-term studies will have to be conducted to evaluate this effect with any precision”.

Dianne Ford tends to accept this recent argument, but does not see resveratrol as entirely discredited: “Many observations

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Among the substances that have recently emerged as front-runner candidates for the prevention of age-related illness is resveratrol, present in red wine, which was believed to increase the activity of sir­tuins. However, two scientific studies published last May revealed that the results

obtained may have been exaggerated by certain flaws in the analysis.

A symposium for international experts and advanced training for Latin American specialists The 4th International Symposium on Cardiovascular Health, organized by the Fundación Investigación y Desarrollo Área Cardiovascular and the BBVA Foundation, and led by doctors Carlos Macaya and Antonio López Farré, welcomed twelve experts from Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. In the words of López Farré, the encounter was the occasion to “bring the research community and broader public up to date with the latest advances in the understanding, prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases, still the world’s leading cause of death. Discussions at the event ranged from preventive, lifestyle factors (functional foods, the influence of diet in the onset of diseases, etc.) to new therapeutic targets, genetic biomarkers of cardiovascular disorders or the role of telomeres”. The symposium supplements the Scientific Update Course in Cardiovascular Health for Latin American Specialists co-organized by the BBVA Foundation and the Cardiovascular Research Foundation of Hospital Clínico San Carlos. Over the course of a week, 25 practitioners from countries of South and Central America – see group photo above – completed a round of lectures, debates and clinical and practical case studies in the School of Medicine of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, as well as visiting different units of the Cardiovascular Institute at Hospital Clínico San Carlos.

14 BASIC SCIENCES

BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 28 - V/2011

P

hysics is about to experience a watershed moment. Before long, scientists will know if their most prized theory bears up – the socalled Standard Model describing what every single thing is made of. The LHC particle accelerator (the initials stand for Large Hadron Collider) aspires to find the only elementary particle predicted by this theory that has so far eluded detection – known as the Higgs boson. Its discovery “would be as great a step forward” in experimental physics as “finding the missing link,” and would prove that the theories developed in the 1960s “have held up well”, in the words of Nobel Physics laureate Gerard 't Hooft. This Dutch professor – in Madrid to participate in the BBVA Foundation’s Lecture Cycle on Astrophysics and Cosmology – shared the Nobel Prize in 1999 with his colleague Martinus Veltman for giving the Standard Model a sound mathematical base. In this model, the Higgs boson is the particle that explains why all remaining particles have the mass that they have. Until now, experiments conducted in accelerators have borne out all the predictions of the Standard Model, but they have failed to find the Higgs. This indeed was one of the main motives behind the construction of the LHC, which was started up at the CERN laboratory near Geneva in 2010. The LHC is the world’s highest energy particle accelerator and it is thought that its energy range – seven teraelectronvolts or TeV – covers the spectrum within which the Higgs should appear. “The LHC is a machine unique in the world,” explains ’t Hooft. “In elementary particle physics, high energies are synonymous with tiny distance scales: the higher the energies of the colliding particles, the tinier the structures are that control their behavior. In this sense the LHC works like a microscope, the world’s most powerful microscope. We hope to discover new

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Gerard 't Hooft: “Finding the Higgs boson would be as big a step forward as finding the missing link”

Gerard ’t Hooft received the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics for giving the Standard Model a sound mathematical base.

things with it, and to check theories that work very well with the knowledge we have to date, but need more inquiry.” Physicists will not see the Higgs directly since its existence is so fleeting, but it is hoped that the sophisticated detectors installed in the LHC will pick up its tracks. Even so, they will only be unearthed after sifting painstakingly through the data. The LHC is about to complete its second year in operation. Over the next few months, physicists will search the data for traces of the Higgs, and in March 2012 the second round of collisions will commence.

And if the Higgs doesn’t show? What chances are there that the Higgs is hiding among the data gathered to date? And what will happen if the LHC fails to detect the particle? Will it mean rewriting the whole of the Standard Model, the theory that to date has made sense of the known universe? “The field of the Higgs particle acts as a kind of arbiter,” ’t Hooft relates. “Projected

against other particles, this field determines their behavior; whether they have mass and/or charge and how different they are from other particles. If we don’t find the Higgs, if it is not in fact there, we will need something else to take on this arbiter role.” Its absence would signify that “our theories no longer work, and they have worked so well until now that that is difficult to imagine”. But detecting the Higgs would not mean there are no mysteries left to resolve: “It will be nice to learn that we were right [if the Higgs does turn up], but it’s only one small step. There are still many problems lying in wait,” says a cautious ’t Hooft. In the meantime, the LHC will hopefully throw light on other current mysteries like black holes, dark matter, the supersymmetry theory or string theory.

BASIC SCIENCES 15

BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 28 - V/2011

D

avid Spergel, an astrophysicist at Princeton University (United States), is a leading light in the current golden age of cosmology, in which scientists have at last divined the age, composition and form of the universe. But many questions remain unanswered. And it was these questions, and the tools that will hopefully help unravel them in coming years, that occupied Spergel’s attention during his talk in the BBVA Foundation as part of “The Science of the Cosmos, Science in the Cosmos”, a lecture cycle directed by Professor Ana Achúcarro (Leiden University, Netherlands; University of the Basque Country). In the last few decades, we have learned more about how the cosmos was born and developed than in all of the preceding centuries, thanks to the arrival on the scene of a new generation of telescopes and instruments specifically designed to observe the universe in its infancy. One such device is NASA’s WMAP telescope for which Spergel serves on the science team. WMAP has measured the parameters that define our universe to a high degree of precision, and the surprising fact is that these are no more than six. As Spergel himself puts it: “Our universe is remarkably simple and yet we still cannot explain its origin”. One of the parameters in question is the age of the universe, which WMAP data estimate at 13.70 billion years to better than 2%. Others are the density of matter of the type we know – scientifically termed baryonic matter – and of the still unknown dark matter. Thanks to data provided by the WMAP probe, we can say that the matter of which we are made is barely 5% of what is out there. The rest is 23% dark matter and 72% dark energy, the universe’s single largest ingredient and, to all intents and purposes, a mystery to science. “WMAP measurements have ushered in a new era of precision cosmology, and are having a huge impact on astronomy,

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“We still don’t know why there is something instead of nothing,” affirms theoretical astrophysicist David Spergel

David Spergel, Charles Young Professor of Astronomy at Princeton University (United States).

cosmology and physics,” says Spergel. “Overall we have measured the parameters defining the cosmos 30,000 times better than in previous experiments.” The first two papers presenting WMAP’s results, released in 2003 and 2007, are the most cited of the past decade in physics and astronomy.

A light born shortly after the Big Bang Spergel began working with the WMAP team in 1994, in what he considers “the greatest scientific opportunity of my career”. The satellite, launched in 2001, is the second mission designed to analyze the cosmic microwave background radiation that fills every corner of the cosmos. CMB radiation, to use its initials, is a light now invisible to the human eye that was emitted some 300,000 years after the Big Bang, and contains abundant information on the moment when the universe began expanding. In order to analyze it, telescopes sweep across the full sky measuring its temperature on the lookout for infinitesimal variations. It is these differences that hold the information needed to understand the cosmos. WMAP can detect changes

in temperature to an accuracy as high of one millionth of a degree. WMAP data have also confirmed that the universe initially expanded at a speed faster even than the speed of light, in a process known as inflation. But there is still some way to go before we have a full grasp of these phenomena. “The Standard Model [the Big Bang] resolves many of our questions, but it doesn’t explain the origin of the universe,” Spergel points out. “It doesn’t tell us why there is something instead of nothing.” These gaps can only be filled by further observations, which is why astrophysicists are so eagerly awaiting the results of the Planck mission (European Space Agency), which will shortly release measurements of cosmic background radiation with “ten times the sensitivity of WMAP. Will today’s simple model still hold up when confronted with the new data? Will Planck tell us something about dark matter and dark energy? Will it detect the gravitational waves predicted by inflationary models? These are just a few of the questions we hope to solve when the new information comes in,” says Spergel.

16 ENVIRONMENT

BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 28 - V/2011

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Research networks and alliances with health and education can help enlarge the role of protected areas

Workshop participants during one of the daily sessions.

A

s much as 28% of Spain’s land area has been given over to nature conservation under varying degrees of protection (from nature parks to areas of outstanding natural beauty by way of biosphere reserves). But how can we adapt the management of these spaces so they continue to supply the services so necessary for human wellbeing and territorial organization? This was the central question broached at the Workshop on Protected Areas and Global Change organized by EUROPARCEspaña, Fundación Fernando González Bernáldez and the BBVA Foundation. The event brought together twenty-five professionals, researchers and administrators from a variety of backgrounds: management of natural spaces (Mediterranean forest, coasts, rivers, marine and montane areas) and agroecosystems, but also strategic planning, territorial zoning, social anthropology, environmental education, and institutional and governance studies. Their reading of the current situation was that it encompassed both successes and failures. Protected areas have proved to be an essential conservation tool for terrestrial and marine species. From a social standpoint, they are an effective vehicle for informing and mobilizing public opin-

ion, and in some cases have given rise to entrepreneurial projects that add value to the landscape. However, they continue to be dogged by structural problems such as insufficient hands-on planning and management, isolation and, in many cases, small size of the areas, the questionable representativeness of certain ecosystems (particularly river, coastal and marine), and the fact that novel funding mechanisms like, for instance, tax breaks for private-sector contributors, have yet to be properly exploited,” in the view of Marta Múgica, Director of the Fundación Fernando González Bernáldez and coordinator of EUROPARC-España, who also cited “lack of integration between sectorial policies and poor coordination between official stakeholders” as barriers to progress. Global change and, particularly, causal factors linked to population growth and the modern consumerist attitude to natural resources, “make it more and more necessary to start from a systemic perspective, taking an ecoregional approach that improves the resilience (capacity to tolerate disturbance) of protected areas and recognizes their value as a source of services vital to the wellbeing of local populations and other beneficiaries,”

adds Múgica. She offers as example innovative partnerships with the health and education sectors: “In Australia, doctors are prescribing rest and physical exercise in natural spaces as an alternative to antidepressants,” while arguing that “much better use can be made of their power to educate the public about the importance of conservation”. The relationship between managers and researchers is another fount of opportunities. For Marta Múgica, “we have still not tapped the full potential of protected areas as a nexus between researchers and managers. The National Parks Network already operates a Global Change Observatory with monitoring functions, but initiatives of this kind also have a place in other protected areas.” Among the examples discussed at the workshop was the Linaria information system, a database run from the Sierra Nevada Biosphere Reserve whose users can input observations from a mobile phone or PDA. Its relational format means this material is available for use in systemic research, teaching or documentation.

HUMANITIES 17

BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 28 - V/2011

I

f the project Ants as a teaching aid, an exhaustive study – among the winners in the 27th edition of the Francisco Giner de los Ríos Awards for Improvements in Educational Quality – can be said to resemble anything, it would have to be an anthill in full work mode. Thanks to the careful planning and enthusiasm of the participating team, in just two years it has given rise to over thirty activities in the primary and lower and upper secondary cycles at Villa de Móstoles School. Not only that, it has extended its network to other schools and the university, alternating open-air events with school-based workshops, lab practice and exhibitions, and integrating faceto-face activities with the creation of social networks, WebQuests (guided Internet research tools) and online videos. It has even been written up in two books documenting students’ experiences.

A fine specimen of Camponotus sp. photographed during one of the teaching trips.

scheme called jointly by Spain’s Education Ministry and the BBVA Foundation, its promoter, Raúl Martínez Cristóbal, spent the 2008-2009 school year gathering material and rehearsing the different units within the project, intent on compensating “the dearth of information on ant life available for use in the classroom”. Three years on, he heads the Teaching Area of the Iberian Myrmecology Association, this being the branch of entomology devoted to the study of ants.

RAÚL MARTÍNEZ CRISTÓBAL

Distinguished with the special prize – worth 24,000 euros – in this annual award

RAÚL MARTÍNEZ CRISTÓBAL

The use of ants as a teaching aid among the projects earning a Francisco Giner de los Ríos Award

Image obtained during laboratory practice. The queen – on the left – is accompanied by various workers exchanging food, eggs, larvae and pupae.

The project’s core module is targeted on secondyear lower secondary students, who are taken on an outing to the El Soto Nature Park (Madrid) to explore diverse ant habitats and identify the species living in each. In October, each of the fifty pupils receives two tubes with queens of the Messor barbarus species, and for the rest of the year they have to observe and document the growth and development of the ant colony formed around her. This gives them an understanding of the life cycle of the ant, whose metamorphosis they analyze in detail, comparing

it with that of other insects. It also gives them the opportunity to examine their behavior at close quarters. In June, they hand in a final assignment, building on the preliminary study submitted in the month of February.

Recreating habitats in controlled conditions The best way to study a colony’s development is to build an artificial ant nest. This is the challenge students took up in a dedicated workshop, whose production amounted to over one hundred and twenty nests constructed out of ytong (aerated concrete). Other groups of students were taught to make ant nests in plaster or perspex, some of which were shown in an exhibition of live colonies, the first of its kind in Spain. Pupils learn by these means that each species needs particular conditions of light, humidity and diet in order to thrive. The perspex anthills are also the center of open days for pupils and parents, when they are put on display at the school entrance to be examined through stereo microscopes. Visitors are thus offered a live window onto “the functioning of an ant nest throughout all phases of the animals’ development – queen, worker, pupa, larva, egg – and the way they respond to different stimuli. Students get to observe the insects in full anatomical

18 HUMANITIES

Meantime, first-year and fifth-year secondary students do laboratory practices focusing on the insects’ metamorphosis. Each of the eight groups is given a tube containing an ant colony raised in captivity, on which they are asked to make notes.

“It is hard to simultaneously observe all the stages of metamorphosis in another animal,” Martínez points out, “yet the diverse stages through which an insect passes can be examined in these tubes”. Pupils record their observations on a worksheet, learn to handle the animals with respect (the tubes should be plugged with tinfoil when not in use so the ants are not needlessly disturbed), and compare the ants’ metamorphosis with that of the cricket, grasshopper or silkworm.

RAÚL MARTÍNEZ CRISTÓBAL

detail and to understand the basic interactions between members of the colony,” explains this biology teacher and member of the Villa de Móstoles staff for the last twenty-three years.

BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 28 - V/2011

RAÚL MARTÍNEZ CRISTÓBAL

Other practice sessions focus on triphallaxis. Pupils capture two ants from the same colony and leave them for one or two days in a test tube containing no food but only a wet cotton ball. A drop of honey water is then deposited on a petri dish and one of the ants placed there so it can feed. This ant is transferred to another slide alongside its hungry companion. The two will recognize each other and, in a short time, the first ant will feed the other mouth to mouth. “This allows students to experience first hand in a simple but striking manner an important aspect (altruism) of the insects’ social behavior,” explains Raúl Martínez.

From the classroom to the Internet

Criar hormigas is one of the self-published books in

ALBERTO SÁNCHEZ MARTÍN

which Raúl Martínez has written up the project.

The successive lower-secondary students engaging in the year-long project share their queries, experiences, videos and photos via a specially created social network: Hormigas en el Villa. Completing the online package are three WebQuests – for primary, lower-secondary and upper-secondary students – that pose progressively more difficult tasks, so they learn how to use the net as a research medium.

A laboratory practice to stimulate triphallaxis or the altruistic exchange of liquid food between ants.

In view of the mounting interest from other schools – in Andalusia, Cantabria, Catalonia and Murcia – Raúl Martínez opted to write up his experience of the project in two self-published textbooks: Criar hormigas (Raising Ants) and La hormiga recolectora Messor barbarus, biología

The project team created three WebQuests (guided Internet learning tools) for students in the final year of primary, lower secondary and upper secondary school.

y cuidados (Messor Barbarus the harvester ant, biology and care). With a similar educational goal, “we have prepared a collection of thirty short videos, lasting 3 to 6 minutes, for students and teachers, with clear instructions on how to handle ants and suggestions, for instance, on their observation. Over half of this number feature actual pupils, who also took part in the filming and editing”.

A queen ant donor bank for use by other centers “The big difficulty other teachers may face in getting this kind of project started is where to get their queen ants, since their flights are confined to set periods in the year. To get round this problem, we give them away.” This is the function of the Messor barbarus Donor Bank: “We have a deposit of around 200 queens (some already running their own small colonies)

HUMANITIES 19

which students have collected in test tubes, in case teachers want to launch the experiment when conditions are not right for the queens’ nuptial flight. Pupils have reacted with pride and pleasure at being part of such an ambitious project. The queens were captured in October and have been cared for since”. The bank also draws specimens from colonies left over from school work which students no longer want.

Respect for nature as a unifying theme Both the ant bank and teaching methodology insist on the firmest respect for nature. Natural ant nests should in no event be plundered. Nor should ants be transplanted to an alien environment. In this regard, catching winged queens causes nature no harm, since the chances of one getting to form a colony are fewer than 1/1,000, and just one anthill is capable of producing hundreds of winged queens in a single flight.”

RAÚL MARTÍNEZ CRISTÓBAL

The queens donated come with a sheet of instructions setting out the recommended light, food and humidity conditions for a colony to form. Donations, moreover, are not confined to pre-school, primary and secondary centers but extend to higher education and research institutions, like the Zoology Department of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, the Madrid City Council’s Insectarium and the

Caramunt de Lleida Nature Classroom. These last two facilities have also been offered technical advice on the use of ants as a teaching resource. For Raúl Martínez, the experience garnered over the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 school years confirms the project’s practical utility: “Children get a sound grasp of the theoretical concepts involved in ecology. They come to see biodiversity as something tangible and to understand the value of the scientific method, as well as learning how to make good use of social networks and new technologies and to work on a shared project with pupils from other educational levels”. Over one thousand students have so far taken part in one or more activities related to the project, and the plan now is to take it into pre-school education in 2011-2012, with older children giving talks to the younger ones, illustrated with audiovisual materials.

Architecture, wikis, stage productions... Established in 1983, these awards organized jointly by the Ministry of Education and the BBVA Foundation – and distributing 129,000 euros cash across eight prize categories – recognize innovation in teaching methods and materials. The following projects were also among the winners in the 27th edition:

with their teacher – gives a three-dimensional view of how it is formed inside.

• All roads lead to… the book! M. Dolores Díez Jambrina and four other teachers at Río Duero Secondary School (Zamora). • The Stage Space Project. Carlos Feijoo Alonso and four other teachers at Oviedo Professional Conservatory of Music.

• Learning to see. M. Paz Rodríguez Rodrigo and ten other teachers at the Jesús María-El Salvador School in Zaragoza.

The award for the application of knowledge, methodologies and technology to innovative problem-solving in the social and personal sphere was left vacant by the jury.

• 10th Open Door Days: Architecture. Ana J. Guajardo Guajardo and 32 other teachers at Las Veredas de Colmenarejo School (Madrid). Móstoles School.

This negative of an ant nest – constructed by pupils

• Wikiespellos: a wikiexperience of building collaborative, creative learning spaces in pre-school education. Uxia Acuña Abalde of Aguiño de Ribeira Infant School (Pontevedra).

• Enthusing students for science, technology and research: a practical experiment at Floridablanca Secondary School. Fernando Ureña Villanueva and eight other teachers at Floridablanca Secondary School, Murcia.

A section of the ant nests exhibition held in Villa de

RAÚL MARTÍNEZ CRISTÓBAL

BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 28 - V/2011

20 ECONOMY

BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 28 - V/2011

Territorial differences in public spending and their impact on equal opportunity and fiscal consolidation T

erritorial differences in the size of the public sector are greater within Spain than between it and its neighbor countries. At times, the gap is so big from one region to another that it threatens the principle of equality of access to public services, as well as leaving some territories with a rising debt bill. Confronting the risks that this situation poses should be seen as a matter of national urgency: the public sector needs to be more transparent in its funding allocation to different branches of government and to reduce the at times glaring inequalities in resources per inhabitant. This goal should be written into the current fiscal retrenchment drive and the design of future budgetary stability packages, which will rely on the austerity and efficiency of all public authorities. These are among the main conclusions of the study Las diferencias regionales del sector público español, directed by Francisco Pérez, professor at the University of Valencia and Research Director of the Valencian Economic Research Institute (Ivie), with the participation of Ivie analysts Vicent Cucarella, Abel Fernández and Laura Hernández. Among its results is a database offering first-time details of the operation at regional level of Spain’s four branches of general government (central government, Social Security, autonomous communities and local authorities). Its high degree of economic and functional

disaggregation facilitates a regional window on employment and wages, health and education spending, social benefits and infrastructure investment. The period analyzed runs from 2000 to 2008, years by which decentralization was complete and for which we have homogeneous series of validated budget data for all government authorities. Although results do not extend to the crisis years, they suggest that regions will have to confront the required adjustments from very different levels of revenue and expenditure. The full information on which this article is based is available from the BBVA Foundation website (www.fbbva.es).

Between 41% and 45% of GDP The size of Spain’s public sector in terms of GDP is similar to that of neighbor countries. In 2008, the last year for which detailed regional data are available, although public spending came to 41.4% of Spanish GDP, only 12.6% went on the production of services making up publicsector Gross Value Added (GVA) (health and education primarily). The remaining 28.8% comprised redistributive expenditures (pensions, social benefits) that form no part of GDP. In 2010, public spending stood at 45% of GDP, with public-sector GVA at 13.4% and redistributive expenditure at 31.6% – the increase under this last head accounting for almost all of public spending growth.

Three decades after decentralization got underway, public spending is split half and half between central government authorities – including Social Security – and territorial authorities, taking in the autonomous communities and local corporations. The former are the main fount of pensions and social benefits while the latter are in charge of education and healthcare provision (figure 1).

Regional differences The study emphasizes that the weight of public spending fluctuates widely from one region to another (figure 2), both above and below its average values, exceeding 68% in Extremadura and 50% en Castilla-La Mancha, Asturias, Andalusia and Galicia, but short of 40% in La Rioja, Navarra, the Balearic Islands, the Valencia Region, the Basque Country and Catalonia, and a mere 27.7% in the Madrid Region. If the public sector, for reasons of fairness, spends a similar sum per inhabitant in all of Spain’s autonomous communities, then logically its weight in GDP will be higher in less developed regions in tune with their lower per capita income. But in today’s Spain, this is not the sole cause of the differences found: the expenditure per inhabitant figures featuring in the study show gaps so large that they cannot be explained away by differences in per cap-

FIGURE 1: Distribution of general government expenditure, 2008 (percentage) GCF + net acquisitions 9.7

Wages 26.3

40.6 Transfers

Source: Fundación BBVA-Ivie.

Social Security 28.5

13.4 23.3 Intermediate consumptions

Local authorities

Central government 21.8

36.3 Autonomous communities

Other 34.2

6.0 Transport and communications

Education 11.2

Health 14.7

33.8 Pensions and social protection

ECONOMY 21

BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 28 - V/2011

FIGURE 2: Public spending and GVA by region, 2008 (percentage of GDP) 68.6 55.2 55.1 53.6

70

52.2

47.6

46.1

44.5 42.4

60 50

41.7 41.4 39.2 39.2 38.2 37.6

37.1 37.1 27.7

Disparities in education and health

30

One particularly striking disparity refers to health and education spending (figure 3), both of them controlled by the autonomous communities. Regional authorities indeed devote most of their budget to these two functions which are therefore in the front line of any funding restrictions. Differences with regard to these basic services reach significant proportions, exceeding 50% between the two extremes. Heading the table is in this case Navarra with the Madrid Region bringing up the rear.

20 23.2

10

18.8

14.9 16.8 14.9 16.2 15.8 13.8 14.8 11.4 12.6 12.8 11.8 11.3 11.5 8.9 8.8 10.5 Principality of Asturias

40

Castilla-La Mancha

Public-sector GVA/GDP

Madrid Region

Catalonia

Basque Country

Valencia Region

Balearic Islands

Navarra

La Rioja

Spain

Murcia Region

Aragón

Cantabria

Canary Islands

Castilla y León

Galicia

Extremadura

0 Andalusia

ita income. In Asturias, for instance, per capita public spending is 42% higher than in Murcia, even though the latter’s GDP is 12% lower. In reality, the highest levels of public expenditure per inhabitant correspond to both high and low per capita income regions the (the Basque Country and Extremadura), and the same thing occurs at the bottom of the spending table (the Madrid and Murcia regions).

Public spending/GDP

Source: Fundación BBVA-Ivie.

Madrid Region

Divergences in expenditure per inhabi­ tant on education and health are much more than can be accounted for by any reasonable index of need or per capita cost. The authors of the study remark that, in today’s conditions, it is likely that these fundamental services are not being provided to the same standards across

all of Spain, despite their key importance for equality of opportunity. That said, financing is not the only consideration, for each region exhibits its own pattern of demand for public or private services, while their governments foster a differing mix of public, grant-aided or private facilities. For instance, in Extremadura

and Navarra, the regions with the highest per capita spending on health, coverage is almost entirely public. Conversely, in the Balearics, Catalonia, the Madrid Region and the Basque Country, a mixed publicprivate model tends to prevail (figure 4). Something similar happens in education (figure 5), though here the lines are

FIGURE 3: Public spending per capita on education and health (2000-2008 average. Constant 2008 euros per inhabitant) 1,359

Navarra 1,195

Basque Country

1,151

Castilla-La Mancha

1,457 1,440

Aragón

1,095

Extremadura

1,704

Navarra Cantabria

1,422

Extremadura

Canary Islands

1,078

La Rioja

1,405

Balearic Islands

1,078

Castilla y León

1,389

1,022

Murcia Region

P. of Asturias

1,381

Castilla-La Mancha

1,379

Andalusia

992

Castilla y León

985

Galicia

Galicia

984

Andalusia

977

Canary Islands

Catalonia

1,349 1,316 1,256

921

Catalonia

Cantabria

918

Valencia Region

Aragón

917

Basque Country

P. of Asturias

896

Balearic Islands

1,131

La Rioja

893

Murcia Region

1,089

Madrid Region

881

Madrid Region

Valencia Region

All autonomous communities 0

250

500

750

1,000

1,188 1,151

1,061

All autonomous communities

991

Source: Fundación BBVA-Ivie.

1,196

1,250

1,500

1,252 0

250

500

750

1,000

1,250

1,500

1,750

22 ECONOMY

BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 28 - V/2011

drawn differently. In the Basque Country, for example, a high level of grant-aided private education goes hand in hand with high per capita spending, while the Asturias region combines low per capita spending with a predominantly public system.

FIGURE 4: Regional classification by type of healthcare coverage, 2006 (percentage) 97.3 95.0 93.1 92.9 92.8 91.9 92.2 91.2 91.1 88.9 89.3 87.2 86.2 79.5 75.4 75.0 74.2

Extremadura Navarra Canary Islands Cantabria Castilla-La Mancha La Rioja Murcia Region Galicia Andalusia Castilla y León Valencia Region Aragón P. of Asturias Basque Country Madrid Region Catalonia Balearic Islands

Less money, more debt The slump in government revenues that followed the collapse of the real estate bubble has laid bare a heavy structural deficit in Spain’s public sector. And the crisis means it is more necessary than ever to curtail the big-spending propensity of all levels of government – especially the autonomous communities – in order to ensure the mid-term sustainability of public accounts in a scenario of slow growth.

85.4

Spain 0

20

40

Public

Mixed

The main cause of the spiraling expenditure of the Spanish regions is their specialization in education and health service delivery, also the expenditure functions expanding fastest in many other countries. As a result, deficit reduction targets represent a particularly hard challenge. The reason lies equally in the inertia gathered by this provision and in the actual services involved, since health, education and social services together sum 72% of all outlays. But this is not to say that there is no room for improvement in management efficiency, unlocking cost savings without detriment to the quality of the

FIGURE 5: Regional classification of the proportion of students in compulsory (nonuniversity) education by type of center. 2008-2009 school year (percentage) 82.5 78.9 77.3 75.0 72.7 72.1 69.3 67.4 66.9 66.7 66.5 66.1 65.8 64.5 63.0

15.5 19.0 16.7 20.5 23.5 24.1 25.4 26.0 29.7 30.0 30.6 33.8 26.7 31.5 30.1 28.5 17.8 49.5

53.7 49.6 67.3

Spain 0

20 Public centers

Source: Fundación BBVA-Ivie.

80

0.4 0.8 2.0 1.7 0.7 0.3 2.4 0.3 2.3 0.7 1.8 0.9 0.3 0.6 1.9 1.1 0.7

13.2

1.4 100

Private

Source: Fundación BBVA-Ivie.

It should be said here that while decentralization has done much to modernize the Spanish public sector, the resulting enlargement of service provision has been neither thrifty nor efficient. On the one hand, central government has retained a large proportion of central ser­vices, despite devolution; and on the other, the autonomous communities have duplicated a series of costly structures, institutions and public corporations, some of which, like the regional TV stations, also run substantial deficits.

Castilla-La Mancha Extremadura Canary Islands Andalusia Murcia Region Galicia P. of Asturias Valencia Region Castilla y León Cantabria La Rioja Navarra Aragón Balearic Islands Catalonia Madrid Region Basque Country

60

2.3 4.2 4.9 5.4 6.5 7.8 5.4 8.5 6.6 10.4 8.8 11.8 13.5 19.9 22.7 23.9 25.1

26.2 40

60

Grant-aided private centers

2.0 2.1 6.0 4.4 3.9 3.8 5.3 6.6 3.4 3.3 2.9 0.2 7.5 4.0 6.9 0.9 6.6

80 Private centers

100

services on offer. In fact, the study points out that users’ perceptions of service quality are not always better in the regions that are the highest spenders.

A process aggravated by the crisis Significantly, all Spain’s regions have seen their public debt/GDP ratio increase since the onset of the crisis, many of them by a wide margin (figure 6). In all cases, the scale of the increase is partly explained by the slump in tax receipts, which has been steepest in those regions worst hit by the effects of the real estate crisis. The relative intensity of this shock has been a determining factor in regional indebtedness, as has the scale of committed expenditures – some of them now financially unviable –­ and the policies deployed in response to the crisis, whether expansionary or restrictive. If we list the autonomous communities by per capita revenues, we observe that this variable alone does not suffice to explain their greater or lesser financing needs. Some regions with lower revenues have less debt than “richer” neighbors, because the ratio also depends on their spending policies. The study recommends that revenue inequalities should be factored into fiscal consolidation plans. Some of the country’s most indebted regions are among those taking in the lowest revenues but also spending least (the case of the Balearic Islands or the Valencia Region). If they are forced to make deeper cuts to

ECONOMY 23

BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 28 - V/2011

most developed regions receive more than they contribute; and the least developed regions do not all receive funds in equal measure. The study analyzes the public sector’s redistributive influence in household income, and concludes that, generally speaking, redistributive balances are positive and growing in regions with the lowest income, and increasingly negative in those with most. But there are notable exceptions. The “comunidades forales” (regions with their own historic laws) report positive redistributive balances despite their high average income levels. By contrast, five regions with below-average income (Valencia, the Canary Islands, Murcia, Castilla-La Mancha and Andalusia) enjoy a clearly weaker redistributive effect than other regions with comparable levels.

FIGURE 6: Public debt as % of regional GDP (percentage) (increase from 2007 to 2010) 25

20

15

20.6

20.3

18.8

18.1

13.0 11.5

10

9.0 7.7

8.6

7.9 5.9

4.3

5

8.9

9.9

10.3

8.6 7.3

7.0 5.1

4.2

4.0

9.7 8.1

2.4

3.4

9.3 7.6

4.5

3.8

3.4

2007

Cantabria (120.4)

La Rioja (117.5)

Extremadura (112.0)

Castilla y León (109.9)

Aragón (108.9)

Galicia (106.8)

P. of Asturias (105.4)

C.-La Mancha (103.0)

Catalonia(102.3)

Andalusia (99.1)

Madrid Region (95.7)

Canary Islands (91.8)

Murcia Region (91.3)

Balearic Islands (91.1)

Valencia Region (91.0)

0

2010

Source: Fundación BBVA-Ivie.

curb their larger deficits and debt ratios, they will probably be less able to provide basic public services to the standards of other regions, contrary to the principle of equal opportunities.

Public-sector production and GVA The ratio of public-sector GVA to GDP also varies widely from one region to the next. In 2008, the last year of the study, the percentage of regional GDP originating in the public sector ranged from the 22.3% of Extremadura to 7.4% in Catalonia. The figures, of course, are influenced by the service delivery regime – in the case of mixed education or healthcare provision, production and employment are private so do not compute as public GVA. One major reflection of these differences is the weight of the public sector in each region’s employment and wages (figure 7). In Extremadura, for example, 40% of wages paid are in the public sector, which goes some way to explaining the lesser job destruction suffered in the crisis. In Catalonia, conversely, the proportion drops to 12.9% of wages, and in the Basque County, Madrid, Navarra and Valencia stands at less than 20%. The reasons are again diverse: lower public

revenues in some cases, but in others the greater or lesser extent of public-private provision, the strength of demand for private healthcare and education, and the existence of more economic activity, more employment and higher private-sector wages. There is no denying that the public sector exerts a redistributive wealth effect, but anomalies persist: some of the country’s FIGURE 7: Public sector worker pay as % of total wages (average 2000-2008) (percentage) 40.5

Extremadura Castilla-La Mancha Castilla y León Andalusia Canary Islands Murcia Region Cantabria Galicia P. of Asturias Aragón La Rioja Balearic Islands Valencia Region Navarra Madrid Region Basque Country Catalonia All autonomous communities

31.7 29.4 29.0 27.2 26.5 24.8 24.8 24.6 23.3 22.5 19.9 19.8 18.9 17.5 14.0 12.9 21.1 0

Source: Fundación BBVA-Ivie.

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

24 ARTS AND HUMANITIES

BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 28 - V/2011

O

n November 23, the BBVA Foundation’s headquarters in the Marqués de Salamanca Palace played host to the presentation of Antón García Abril. Canción española de concierto, a five-CD collection of the complete works for voice and piano of one of Spain’s most internationally celebrated composers. The voice parts on the recordings were taken by some of the leading lights of the new generation of Spanish singers, including sopranos Ainhoa Arteta, Elena de la Merced and Ofelia Sala. “Antón García Abril’s music touches your heart,” remarked the first of these figures, Ainhoa Arteta. “The handling of text within melody is exquisite; the maestro’s knowledge and refinement shine through in all his compositions: delicate, elegant pieces full of strength and depth. I feel honored each time I sing them.”

Ainhoa Arteta, during the presentation concert for the CD set in Madrid's Teatro Real.

Muelas, to Canciones de mar, amor y albas based on the works of another poet, Ángel González, by way of 2010’s Siete canciones de amor with texts by Antonio Carvajal. Many years ago, when the name of Miguel Hernández was more or less anathema, García Abril paid tribute to him in his

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The five CDs contain over one hundred tracks spanning almost half a century of García Abril’s works for piano and voice: from his Colección de canciones infantiles, inspired by the poems of Federico

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The BBVA and Antón García Abril foundations publish the complete piano and voice works of the Teruel composer

Composer Antón García Abril in the BBVA Foundation’s Madrid headquarters.

music. “I’m now starting to re-read his poems, thinking about a new cycle based on his verse,” explains the Teruel-born composer. García Abril prefers to work in this kind of intimate format, away from the pomp of the symphony, and is convinced that “we have to get back to the song. The song purifies us. Just a text, a voice and a piano. It’s like a marvelous therapy that puts our feet back on the ground”. This is not to say that he disdains larger formats. Some of his major titles have become the object of renewed attention, like the opera Divinas Palabras, the first by a Spanish composer to premier in Madrid’s newly reopened Teatro Real. “I’d like it to be staged again. And I am even ready to write another opera, if I can find a literary source that’s interesting enough.” The BBVA Foundation has partnered the Fundación Antón García Abril in this recording project, whose November 23 presentation concluded with a concert in the Teatro Real, at which Arteta, De la Merced and Sala and tenor José Bros performed a selection of songs from the collection, with Rubén Fernández Aguirre on piano.

ARTS AND HUMANITIES 25

BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 28 - V/2011

Two of the new additions are previously unpublished works: Fragmentos de una manzana y otros poemas, by Peruvian Miguel Ángel Zapata, Professor of Hispanic Literature at Hofstra University in New York, and El rumor de los bordes, by Buenos Aires poet Lila Zemborain, one of the leading voices in contemporary Latin American poetry. El diálogo infinito comprises the selected conversations of two poets: Peruvian Jorge Eduardo Eielson, now unfortunately deceased, and the Uruguayan Martha L. Canfield. This work stands out for the depth and variety of the subjects dwelt upon, making it something of a “rare jewel” in the words of Francisco José Cruz. Cruz also presented Objetos personales (1961-2011), poesía completa, the complete works of dissident Cuban poet Manuel Díaz Martínez (born in Santa Clara in 1936 and exiled in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria since 1992), who brought the evening to a close reading a selection of his own verse. This brings to twenty-seven the number of titles published in the Biblioteca SibilaFundación BBVA de Poesía en Español in its three-year existence. The “library” consists of five collections: Complete Works, Past Works (previously published elsewhere), Contemporary Works (unpublished), Poetic Theory and Aesthetics and, finally, Selected Anthologies, where, as Marset puts it, “the anthologizer is no less present than the poet being anthologized, in what becomes a play of mirrors and glances”. The evening also served as a launch event for issues 36 and 37 of the art,

Cuban poet and exile Manuel Díaz Martínez reads a selection of his work. FUNDACIÓN BBVA

O

n 25 November, the four latest titles in the Biblioteca SibilaFundación BBVA de Poesía en Español had their public presentation in the BBVA Foundation’s Madrid headquarters. Guests at the event included the poet César Antonio Molina, Juan Carlos Marset, Editor of Sibila, Francisco José Cruz, from the magazine’s editorial board, and Rafael Pardo, Director of the BBVA Foundation.

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Four new titles join the Sibila-Fundación BBVA Library of Spanish-Language Poetry

The four latest titles in the collection, alongside issues no. 36 and 37 of magazine Sibila.

music and literature magazine Sibila, with a list of contributors that includes Clara Janés, Antonio Garrigues Walker, Marina Perezagua and Berta Vias Mahou. José Manuel Broto and Walton Ford, the authors respectively of the two issues’ front covers, also occupy the central spreads with newly created artworks, while

the accompanying CDs include works by Impuls and Francesc Taverna-Bech. Of particular interest is the collaboration opening issue number 36; four poems by Tomás Segovia, regarded as one of the great figures in recent Hispano-Mexican letters, who died in Mexico on November 7, 2011.

26 MISCELLANY

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BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 28 - V/2011

The BBVA and Albéniz foundations start the musical year with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony

Nicolas Altstaedt opens the 2011-2012 Soloists cycle German cellist Nicolas Altstaedt was charged with inaugurating the BBVA Foundation Soloists cycle in its 2011-2012 edition, with a program including Trois strophes sur le nom de Sacher by Henri Dutilleux (1916), Suite No. 5 in C minor by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), and Inner World by Carl Vine (1954). Born in 1982, Altstaedt was one of the last students to train with Boris Pergamenschikow in Berlin. He received the 2010 Credit Suisse Young Artists Award and that same year debuted with the Vienna Philharmonic at the Festival of Lucerne. He has recently been appointed artistic director of the forthcoming Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival.

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On October 26, the Symphony Hall of the National Music Auditorium was the venue for a concert inaugurating the Reina Sofía School of Music’s 2011-2012 academic year. The concert was offered by the BBVA Foundation, sponsor of the Viola Chair at this center of advanced musical training, and featured both the school’s own Freixenet Symphony Orchestra and the Madrid Region Choir. Under the baton of Maestro López Cobos, the ensemble performed Symphony No. 9 in D minor by Ludwig van Beethoven. The Foundation’s support for the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía dates back to 1995; initially as sponsor of the Chamber Music Chair and, latterly, since 2001, funding the BBVA Foundation Viola Chair, whose current occupant, professor Diemut Poppen, is advised by no less a figure than the famed conductor Zubin Mehta. The BBVA Foundation’s partnership with this center accordingly extends across the full complement of its teaching and artistic activities.

MISCELLANY 27

Classical and contemporary come together in the guitar playing of Paolo Renzi

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BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 28 - V/2011

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Paolo Renzi, the Parisian guitarrist of Italo-Hispanic origin, gave a guitar concert on November 12 in the Marqués de Salamanca Palace, Madrid headquarters of the BBVA Foundation. In the course of this recital, forming part of the Foundation’s Soloists cycle, Renzi interpreted works by the Italian composer and lutist Francesco da Milano, coeval of Michelangelo and Raphael (and, like them, recruited to the papal court), and Hans Werner Henze (1926), performing excerpts from his Royal Winter Music dedicated to characters from Shakespeare. Completing the evening’s program were works by Luca Francesconi (1956) and Nuccio d’Angelo (1955).

José Luis Temes conducts the Córdoba Symphony Orchestra in the presentation concert for Ramón Garay’s ten symphonies On October 15, 2011, the Sinfónica de Córdoba and conductor José Luis Temes offered a special concert dedicated to the symphonies of Ramón Garay (1761-1823) in the Symphony Hall of the National Music Auditorium in Madrid. Of the ten major works composed by this author, known as the “Spanish Mozart”, the orchestra played Symphony No. 2 in D major, Symphony No. 4 in A major – in what, according to record, was its absolute premiere – Symphony No. 6 in C major and Symphony No. 7 in C major. Not long before, the BBVA Foundation had published Garay’s ten symphonies with music label Verso to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth. Born in Asturias, where he received his early musical education, Garay was one of the first Spanish composers to adopt the Central European model of the symphony in its modern sense. The original manuscripts had lain for over two centuries in the archives of Jaén Cathedral, where Ramón Garay served as chapel master for 36 years.

28 MISCELLANY

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Announcement of the finalist works in the International Composition Competition

BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 28 - V/2011

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An international panel chaired by José Ramón Encinar – on the right, a number of its members during their deliberations – have selected the works that will proceed to the final stage of the National Music Auditorium-BBVA Foundation International Composition Competition. Of the 147 compositions received from many corners of the world, their choice fell on Fulgural, by Colombian Juan Camilo Hernández Sánchez, Before Silence and Activations, both by Madrid composer Manuel Martínez Burgos, and Élégie, pour orchestre symphonique, by Russian Vsevolod Polonsky. The final verdict will be delivered on Saturday, February 11, 2012, when the Orquesta Nacional de España, conducted by Jordi Bernàcer, performs the qualifying pieces in the Madrid National Auditorium. Following the concert, the jury will announce the three winners in this edition.

The BBVA Foundation presents the DVD Hamar, a tour round the Bilbao Guggenheim guided by the music of Gabriel Erkoreka The BBVA Foundation has presented the DVD Hamar, centered round the composition of that name – meaning “ten” in the Basque language Euskera – which the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum commissioned from Gabriel Erkoreka on the occasion of its tenth anniversary. “My idea was to set the museum to music using every one of its spaces. The Guggenheim is a complex building full of corners, and it was this complexity that I wanted to convey in Hamar,” explains Erkoreka, who stands on the left of the photo alongside Ángela Álvarez Rilla, Executive Producer on the recording, and the BBVA Foundation’s Director, Rafael Pardo. Hamar received its premiere in 2007, the museum’s tenth anniversary year. The DVD was recorded following the original “map/score” and its featured settings within the museum.

MISCELLANY 29

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BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 28 - V/2011

Percussion group Drumming explores the work of John Cage

Contemporary Italian music in the charge of PluralEnsemble On November 8, PluralEnsemble offered the public in the BBVA Foundation’s Madrid headquarters an evening of Italian contemporary music. The concert started off with an interview with composer Ivan Fedele, followed by a rendition of his works Immagini da Escher and Imaginary Islands. The former piece evokes the impossible figures and spatial illusions of the celebrated Dutch artist in a score for flute, clarinet, vibraharp, piano, violin and cello. Completing the program were Luca Francesconi’s A fuoco and three works by Salvatore Sciarrino: Lo spazio inverso, Trío No. 2 and Esplorazione del bianco II.

FUNDACIÓN BBVA

October 4, 2011 was the occasion of the first concert in the 2011-2012 BBVA Foundation Contemporary Music Season in Bilbao, performed by the Portuguese group Drumming. Established in Porto (Portugal) in 1999, this musical ensemble has not only showcased the output of contemporary composers, but has also created its own repertoire and convinced international authors to produce works exploring new and varied ways of playing percussion. The program consisted of ten of John Cage’s Constructions, a series composed between 1939 and 1942, in which the Californian author ventures into new sonic territories. The Third Construction, for example, employs the Indian rattle, the Chinese cymbal, tin cans, maracas, cowbells and the tambourine, among other instruments. Regarded as one of the most important U.S. composers of the past century, Cage’s masters included Henry Cowell and Arnold Schönberg, though his music was perhaps most notable for its oriental influences. In fact, it was his studies of Hindu philosophy and Zen Buddhism that led him to the random music he began to compose in 1951 and would continue to explore throughout his career.

30 NEW PUBLICATIONS

Offshoring in the Global Economy. Management Practices and Welfare Implications Joan E. Ricart (Ed.) While offshoring is not a new reality, the scale of its expansion certainly is. The aim of this publication is to help managers deal with the organizational challenges arising from the offshoring phenomenon. The book – directed by Joan E. Ricart, Head of the Department of Strategic Management at IESE Business School – presents both the economic and management-oriented perspective, discussing the latest literature in both fields, assessing the impact on labor markets, and describing the new wave of service offshoring. The arrival of the Internet and telecommuting means companies now have the potential to reassign tasks only recently reserved for qualified home-country employees to specially trained workers in countries offering lower labor costs.

BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 28 - V/2011

Prácticas educativas en una sociedad tecnológica. XXV Premios Francisco Giner de los Ríos a la Mejora de la Calidad Educativa The role of schools is to offer a quality education. And meeting this goal requires a constantly renewed pool of innovative and relevant teaching methods and materials. In order to encourage their production, the successive editions of the Francisco Giner de los Ríos Awards for Improvements in Educational Quality, a project of the Ministry of Education and the BBVA Foundation dating back to 1983, seek to recognize and disseminate some of the best educational projects and practices devised by teachers working in public and private centers. This publication brings together the winning entries in the twenty-fifth edition of the awards; an invaluable selection of innovative learning experiences that will serve as an inspiration and guide to all those involved in the education of young people.

The authors get round the lack of hard data by drawing on a variety of sources – company annual reports, commercial reports and statistics from the OECD, the European Union and the Offshoring Research Network – to plot an accurate map of the scale and diversity of initiatives grouped under the “offshoring” umbrella.

The awards cover all educational stages and a broad spectrum of knowledge areas: humanities and social sciences, experimental sciences and mathematics, horizontal learning activities, and projects involving the use and development of new information and communication technologies.

The results of their research will be of interest to political decisionmakers, in view of the process’s rapid spread; companies, who will increasingly find it part of their global strategy; and labor-market agents, since it proposes flexibility and training in order to re-skill workers affected by the phenomenon. Researchers in the field will also value its dual perspective of macroeconomic analysis and study of corporate decision-making.

Among the prize-winning projects described in its pages are Alchemists of the Word, encouraging students to set down in writing their feelings and experiences with the aid of an IT tool; Radio 24J, using a school radio station as a resource to connect pupils to the world of books, the press and ICTs; The Hidden Life of Water, based around a photographic study of the microscopic life in samples from the Ebro river; and Music Behind the Door, with its focus on using music to put students in touch with the professional and business worlds.

For more information about these publications, contact [email protected]

AGENDA 31

BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 28 - V/2011

Agenda

Tuesday January 10, 2012

Tuesday February 14, 2012

Arts and Humanities

Arts and Humanities

Bilbao – Fundación BBVA, Plaza de San Nicolás, 4, 20:00

Bilbao – Fundación BBVA, Plaza de San Nicolás, 4, 19:30

BBVA Foundation Contemporary Music Season Bilbao 2011-2012. Krater Ensemble – KEA Vocal Group. Rothko Chapel by Morton Feldman

BBVA Foundation Contemporary Music Season Bilbao 2011-2012. Ensemble Kuraia – Elena Gragera. Works by Stravinsky, Gubaidulina and Erkoreka

To March 25, 2012

Tuesday January 24, 2012

Saturday February 18, 2012

Arts and Humanities

Arts and Humanities

Arts and Humanities

Madrid – Museo Nacional del Prado

Bilbao – Fundación BBVA, Plaza de San Nicolás, 4, 20:00

Madrid – Fundación BBVA, Marqués de Salamanca Palace, 19:30

BBVA Foundation Contemporary Music Season Bilbao 2011-2012. PluralEnsemble – Spanish Music of the 21st Century

BBVA Foundation Soloists Cycle 20112012. Recital by Alberto Rosado and Carlos Apellániz

To March 18, 2012

Thursday February 2, 2012

Tuesday February 28, 2012

Arts and Humanities

Arts and Humanities

Arts and Humanities

Barcelona – Fundación Joan Miró

Madrid – Auditorio Nacional de Música, Chamber Music Hall, 19:30

Bilbao – Fundación BBVA, Plaza de San Nicolás, 4, 20:00

BBVA Foundation PluralEnsemble Contemporary Music Concerts 20112012. Portrait IV - Mauricio Kagel/ Matthias Pintscher

BBVA Foundation Contemporary Music Season Bilbao 2011-2012. Sigma Project (saxophone quartet) – Ramon Lazkano (commissioned by the BBVA Foundation)

Thursday February 9, 2012

Monday March 5, 2012

Humanities and Social Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Madrid – Fundación BBVA, Marqués de Salamanca Palace, 19:30

Madrid – Fundación BBVA, Marqués de Salamanca Palace, 19:00

2011-2012 Lecture Cycle. Population Health. Demographic and Statistical Analysis: “Gender Differences in Mortality”. France Mesle and Rosa Gómez Redondo (Institut National d’Études Démographiques)

2011-2012 Lecture Cycle. Population Health. Demographic and Statistical Analysis: “Economic Recession and Fertility in the Developed World”. Miguel Sánchez Romero (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Germany)

Wednesday December 21, 2011

Saturday February 11, 2012

Thursday March 8, 2012

Arts and Humanities

Arts and Humanities

Arts and Humanities

Madrid – Auditorio Nacional de Música, Chamber Music Hall, 19:30

Madrid – Auditorio Nacional de Música, 19:30

Madrid – Fundación BBVA, Marqués de Salamanca Palace, 19:30

BBVA Foundation PluralEnsemble Contemporary Music Concerts 20112012: Portrait III - Berlin 1920. Paul Hindemith/Kurt Weill

Final, National Music AuditoriumBBVA Foundation International Composition Competition

The Magic of the Harp. María Rosa Calvo-Manzano Tribute Concert

Exhibition The Hermitage in the Prado

Exhibition Joan Miró. The Ladder of Escape

32 FORUM

BBVA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 28 - V/2011

Dr. Fermina Rojo-Pérez and Dr. Gloria Fernández-Mayoralas Researchers in the Institute of Economics, Geography and Demographics, Center of Human and Social Sciences, CSIC

The living conditions of the aging population P

opulation aging is an acknowledged fact that has become ever more present in our daily experience. In Spain, the number of over 65s has doubled in the last thirty years, and by 2011 had passed the threshold of eight million people. In the European Union, one of the world’s fastest aging regions, the over 65 age group will go from being 17% of the population in 2010 to 29% in 2050. And certainly the growing proportion of “the elderly” means we have an equally growing need of new knowledge to confront the many changes it will bring. In Europe, the importance of this multidimensional phenomenon and its study has been recognized for some time now, as evidenced by the space found for it in research programs and, recently, the creation of the ERA-AGE platform (European Research Area on Aging). The platform’s goal is to develop a planned agenda for aging research and translate it into policies to deal with demographic change, so people can be assured the possibility of a dignified, independent life, as enshrined in Article II-25 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Further, the European Union has declared 2012 the European Year of Active Aging and Solidarity between Generations. But our goal in this forum is not to discuss the statistics or the causes of the aging process, or the scientific and social advances that have made it possible, but rather how these advances, as assimilated to varying extents by the population, are perceived by the elderly with regard to their impact on their living conditions. Or on that factor for which scientists have yet to agree a definition but which is known, scientifically and popularly, as quality of life. In this respect, the questions we want to answer are what do elderly people understand by quality of life and how do they see their own, but also why is it important to study the progress of this variable as people age.

We accordingly designed an applied research project which allowed elderly people to speak with their own voice rather than starting from the researchers’ predetermined opinions. One of its goals was therefore to understand what old people in our community see as quality of life, initially by listing and weighting the factors of most importance to them. So although respondents were not asked to formulate a conceptual definition of quality of life, their ideas were elicited through a general question on how they rated different aspects of their lives. Their spontaneous answers indicate that health, the family, household finances, social networks and leisure activities are the five most important aspects, together with others mentioned in a smaller percentage of cases. Subjects expressed a high degree of satisfaction with these five aspects, while considering that social relations followed by leisure and family networks were those that contributed most to global quality of life. The factor seen as contributing least was household finances, while health stood in the middle range. Other aspects making a material contribution to the global quality of life indicator have to do with place of residence, and here too respondents expressed a strong satisfaction with their homes, neighborhoods and municipalities, and with their neighbors as a proximity-based social network. Domains relating to emotional states, values and attitudes, and the religious or spiritual dimension also carry significant weight in the lives of the elderly. The expression of quality of life is not homogeneous among older people, and some inequalities emerge as a function of sociodemographic profile. Thus quality of life is the same for men and women, decreases as the individual gets older, exhibits divergences by education level, being highest among those with fewer studies, and bears a direct relation to monthly income. Looking at other subjective and objective parameters to do with the life dimensions that old people

themselves consider important, we can say that a better perceived state of health, a larger-sized household with a higher self-assessed economic status, and at least fortnightly contact with one’s circle of friends are all associated with a better quality of life. These results indicate the individual circumstances and conditions of the elderly population at a particular point in time, and may accordingly change as these circumstances alter. Hence the need to conduct longitudinal studies that monitor the population as it ages. This precisely is the task for which the research team is now preparing: a study of aging in Spain from a multidimensional, multidisciplinary perspective, in which specialists from different fields analyze the diverse factors that shape the experience. Accordingly, information is being collected on subjects’ personal and family background, living circumstances, health status, physical and social environment, work history and economic resources, psychological and emotional health, participation in social and leisure activities, need for support and take-up of services, and quality of life. The study is currently at the pilot stage. Once the results have been analyzed, the longitudinal study proper can be got underway – a twenty-year survey of non-institutionalized Spanish population cohorts born before 1960, with data gathered at regular intervals. This ambitious project will generate vast amounts of information while opening up a wealth of possibilities for the development of supplementary studies to advance our understanding of individual and collective aging trajectories. Research of this kind can provide more in-depth knowledge of the target process and a platform from which to generate new solutions and opportunities in the deployment of social policies for the care of the elderly.