The Rafael del Pino Foundation decided in 2019 to award a Rafael del Pino Chair in Science and Society to Professor Javier García Martínez. Its function is to analyse, debate and communicate the impact of science and technology on society, understood in a broad sense, encompassing the economy, employment, security, energy and quality of life in Spain.
Javier García is the founder of the technology-based company Rive Technology, which commercialises the technology he developed during his Fulbright postdoctoral stay at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Rive Technology has raised more than $80 million in venture capital investment and employs more than 40 people. Since 2012, the catalysts it markets have been used in several refineries in the United States, significantly increasing fuel production and process energy efficiency. In June 2019, the multinational W. R. Grace acquired Rive Technology and now markets its technology worldwide.
Professor García is Professor of Inorganic Chemistry and Director of the Molecular Nanotechnology Laboratory at the University of Alicante (UA), where he has carried out extensive teaching and research work on nanomaterials and their application in the energy sector.
He is the founder and president of Celera, a talent support programme in Spain that selects ten exceptional young people every year to give them resources, training and great opportunities. Forty young people have already benefited from this programme created by Javier García with the Rafael del Pino Foundation and in which several Spanish companies and institutions collaborate.
Professor Garcia is a member of the Committee of Experts of the World Economic Forum. In 2011, he was vice-chair of the Emerging Technologies Council and until 2015 a member of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council, which selected him as a Young Global Leader in 2009. Javier is a member of the Executive Committee of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry and vice-president of its inorganic chemistry division.
Javier García's scientific and business leadership has been recognised with some of the most important awards. In June 2014, he was awarded the Rey Jaime I Prize in the category of New Technologies and is the first Spaniard to receive the 2015 Emerging Researcher Award from the American Chemical Society. In summer 2017, Javier García was recognised by the American Chemical Society with the Kathryn C. Hach Award as the best US entrepreneur in the chemical sector. He is Founding President of the Young Academy of Spain and a member of the Global Young Academy and Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.