CIEMAT is the largest Spanish Public Research
Organization in the field of energy and environment.
Since its creation in 1951, CIEMAT has played an
important role in the development of technologies
associated initially to the field of nuclear fission and,
later on, in other sectors such as thermonuclear
fusion, and renewable energies. All these activities
have
required
training
scientists,
engineers
and
technicians in many advanced technologies, as well as
the implementation of a diversified set of facilities and
infrastructures, (including mechanical and electronic
workshops, assembly halls, metrology labs, computing
infrastructure, etc.). Nowadays, CIEMAT employs
about 1,400 people and has established itself as a
reference center not only in the energy field, but also
in some specific fields of basic research, one of them
being Experimental Particle Physics. A small group
of researchers, in the Basic Research Department,
working on bubble chamber physics, during the 1960s,
was the seed of what today is called the CIEMAT Unit
of Particle Physics (CIEMAT-Física de Particulas, or
simply CIEMAT-FP), which recently got the distinction
of Unit of Excellence María de Maeztu.
