21st January 2026

Dr José López Barneo and Dr Fernando de la Portilla de Juan received yesterday the Award for the Modernisation of Seville and the Award for the International Projection of Seville, respectively, at the awards ceremony organised by the Asociación Iniciativa Sevilla Abierta (ISA), held at the CaixaForum Seville auditorium.

The jury decided to award the Prize for the Modernisation of Seville to Dr López Barneo in recognition of his key role in the creation and consolidation of scientific institutions in Andalusia, and above all for his work as founder and director for 15 years of the Instituto de Biomedicina de Sevilla. López Barneo has demonstrated that it was possible to establish a scientific centre of the highest international standard and to design it with a clear focus on transferring knowledge to hospitals in order to improve the quality of healthcare in Seville’s major public hospitals.

Likewise, the same members of the jury unanimously agreed to award the Prize for the International Projection of Seville to the researcher, physician and surgeon Fernando de la Portilla de Juan, Head of the Complex Colorectal Surgery Unit at Hospital Universitario Virgen del Rocío, President of the European Society of Coloproctology (the first Spaniard to be elected to this position), and founder of the NGO Ibermed. For the past 28 years, Ibermed has been improving the living conditions of very impoverished populations in Ibero-America, particularly in Guatemala (access to drinking water, housing, sanitation, etc.), while also carrying out numerous surgical procedures through humanitarian missions and training local doctors so that they can practise effectively as surgeons.

These awards, presented at a ceremony attended by representatives from a wide range of social, cultural, economic, scientific, educational and corporate sectors from Seville and Andalusia, are decided on the basis of nominations submitted by members of the Asociación Iniciativa Sevilla Abierta (ISA), which brings together individuals from diverse backgrounds within Seville’s civil society. On this occasion, the jury consisted of ISA members Manuel Silva, Ana Llorca, Jacinto Gómez and Almudena Gil, together with ecosystem researcher Manuel Delgado Baquerizo, winner of the ISA Award at the previous edition.