The Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya (CTTC) started its activities in December 2001 as the first research institute and technology center in Spain devoted to physical layer technologies for communications systems.

The scientific activity of CTTC focuses on six research areas oriented to the major transport technologies for digital communications. Radio communications, Optical Networking, Access Technologies, Communications Subsystems, IP Technologies  and  Intelligent Energy [IQe] areas face the current major research trends in wired, optical and wireless communications systems.

In addition to research, CTTC is a singular element in the European research architecture, since engineering consists of approximately 35% of its human resources devoted to R&D tasks. This enables the institution to tune the performed in-houseresearch to industrial applications and engineering demonstrators, paving the way to shorten the distance between researchand industry.

Starting with 4 engineers and 5 Ph.D. in 2002, four years later CTTC was ranked by CDTI (Centro para el Desarrollo TecnológicoIndustrial), an agency of the Spanish Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade, at position six of non-profit research institutions withmajor gross return from European research programs, in competition with major universities and national research institutes. Interms of scientific production, the CTTC annually produces over 30 and 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals and internationalconferences, respectively.

After 2005, the institution was mature to start with an ambitious plan for technology and knowledge transfer to the industrial sector, mainly focusing on national corporations and industries. Additionally, CTTC has also initiated the creation of an IPR portfoliowith the submission of 8 International Patents, which provides a good indication of the tradeoff achieved between engineering and research. Strongly related with these initiatives is our policy of enlarging our experimental infrastructure through testbedsor multipurpose technology platforms, fully developed inside the CTTC as internal projects, and being the natural source for our patent portfolio. These testbeds support today a close relationship and harmonic growth of good science and innovative technology in the fast changing environment of communications engineering.

In addition to that, CTTC is also a recognized center for training of young researchers and engineers. In fact, regardless of thefact that we are a technology-driven center, the number of master and doctoral students, together with post doc researchers,represents approximately 30% of personnel devoted to R&D tasks. This shows the increased interest in CTTC as a researchtraining site in fair competition with the excellent surrounding universities in Barcelona.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that the output of our work is annually submitted to the Business and Scientific Committes. These Committees are in charge of tuning our enthusiasm with the pragmatic and critical views of their members, who arewell-experienced professionals of the national and international communications industrial and academic sectors, with a solid cientific reputation on engineering management, basic and applied research. I would like to express here my sincere recognitionto their work, to the generosity of the time devoted to dive in our problems, and to the criticism of their reports.

To conclude, our challenge during the next five years consists in improving the excellence of our research, also considering that the number of engineers and researchers will significantly increase. We know well that this objective will only be achieved by transmitting our enthusiasm to the newcomers.