ICCUB-IEEC researcher Nadejda Blagorodnova wins the National Youth Talent Research Award 2025
Nadejda Blagorodnova Mujortova, a researcher at the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona, the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (ICCUB-IEEC) and professor at the Faculty of Physics, has jointly received the 2025 National Research Award for Young Talent, with Katherine Villa Gómez, ICREA research professor and group leader at the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ). The announcement was made by the Catalan Minister for Research and Universities, Núria Montserrat, at a press conference.
Nadejda Blagorodnova Mujortova‘s research focuses on observational astronomy in the time domain, which studies transient astrophysical phenomena such as supernovae, stellar mergers, and stars disrupted by supermassive black holes.
“I sincerely thank the Catalan Foundation for Research and Innovation for this recognition, which gives visibility to new generations of researchers. This award represents an incentive to continue working with passion and to reinforce research excellence and innovation,” says Blagorodnova.
With the research group Common Envelope Transients – Progenitors, Precursors, and Properties of their Outbursts (CET-3PO), funded by a grant from the European Research Council (ERC), she studies the interaction and merger of close binary stars. These studies combine stellar evolution models with observations from the most advanced ground-based telescopes, such as the Gran Telescopio Canarias, the Very Large Telescope (Chile), and the Southern African Large Telescope (South Africa), as well as observations Hubble Space Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope.
The award carries a €15,000 endowment, which is equally shared between the two awardees.
Other awardees
The other categories of the National Research Awards were also announced. Luis Serrano, director of the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), has been awarded the 2025 National Research Award for his pioneering research in systems biology and protein design.
The National Research Award for Knowledge Transfer and Innovation went to the Eurecat Foundation, and the Joan Guinovart and Cirera Award for Science Communication was given to biochemist and science communicator Pere Estupinyà. The National Award for Patronage and Public-private Scientific Collaboration has been given to the ARI Project, of Hospital Clínic and the August Pi i Sunyer Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBAPS), and the National Award for the Creation of a Science-based Company, was given to the University of Lleida and the University of Sherbrooke (Canada), for their start-up UniSCool.