Background

In agreement with the goal of fostering a competitive culture based on scientific and technological development that the National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT) had established from its origins, and framing its actions within the policies and objectives contained in the "Indicative Plan of Science and Technology 1976-1982," the Council oversaw the foundation of the "Centro de Investigaciones en Óptica, A.C., CIO" (Center for Research in Optics), in the city of León, Guanajuato, Mexico.   Such process of creation had its legal start on April 18 th , 1980, in a protocol ceremony where the constitutive act for the new institution was drafted, being signed by those who were the authorities at different levels of government and official agencies at the time: Dr. Edmundo Flores, General Director of CONACYT, Dr. Guillermo Soberón Acevedo, rector of the "Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, U.N.A.M." (National Autonomous University of Mexico), Enrique Velasco Ibarra, Constitutional Governor of the State of Guanajuato, and Harold Gabriel Appetl, Mayor of the City of León, Guanajuato.

The signing of the constitutive act was a corollary to countless attempts, challenges, efforts and prior achievements that had been spearheaded by Dr. Daniel Malacara Hernández, the first Mexican scientist ever to be granted a Doctorate degree by the University of Rochester in 1965, and currently an Emeritus Researcher in the "Sistema Nacional de Investigadores, S.N.I." (National System of Researchers), who is also a mandatory reference in the development of Optics around the world. It was at that time, and from diverse scientific and academic charges and positions, initially at UNAM (first in the School of Science and later in the Institute of Astronomy) and later at the INAOE (which he collaborated to found from the basis of the old Astrophysical Observatory of Tonantzintla), that he worked with the conviction that there was an urgent need to create in Mexico a scientific institution of the highest level, to be solely devoted to the development of Optics, a field of knowledge that is currently a cornerstone and strategic foundation for important and valuable breakthroughs in science and technology, in the fashion that he foresaw it.

In the effort to transform what was then only a visionary idea into a reality, different personalities participated with Dr. Malacara on different fronts, people who are widely recognized for their academic work. Dr. Arcadio Poveda Ricalde first impelled the scientific vocation of the then young student Malacara, being his teacher in different courses at UNAM and later bringing him into the Institute of Astronomy, in addition to being his advisor in the writing of the thesis to get the degree in Physics, and later encouraging and supporting his work at INAOE and the foundation of CIO.   Likewise, through many stages of his professional development, Dr. Malacara had the support of Dr. Guillermo Haro Barraza, who included him in the aforementioned project to transform the Astrophysical Observatory into a National Institute, and further on encouraged him to create CIO.

Equally important were the people who were at the helm of the state and municipal governments before those who actually signed the constitutive act, since they were the ones who welcomed the idea, encouraged the effort and granted what was needed, something never simple or insignificant, so that the foundation of CIO would come to safe harbor in the State of Guanajuato, and more specifically, in the City of León, on a background that had, as additional ingredients, the offers and competition to host CIO among other states in the country, within the frame of decentralization that was strongly favored by the federal government at the time. The men who through their decisions and support materialized the fate of the Center were Luis H. Ducoing Gamba, who was the head of the state government, and Roberto Plascencia Saldaño, who was the highest ranking officer in León's city government at the time when CIO was being created.

So, in April, 1980, CIO was founded in León, and it started to operate on a rented floor in a building located downtown, with one researcher and three technicians (Dr. Malacara himself, the then M.Sc. Arquímedes Morales, and José Castro Villicaña and Carlos Javier Martínez Castro, both engineers), all of them commissioned by UNAM, and who conducted research in the field of optical instrumentation, mainly in the area of astronomical telescopes and optical surfaces. Initial steps were also taken to increase the number of staff members and areas of work (which was one of the most urgent needs to satisfy in order to grow and consolidate, since this had been one of the conditions imposed by CONACYT and UNAM so that the project could be transferred to Guanajuato), and what is more important, the spreading of information regarding topics of Science and Optics was started at the educational institutions of middle and higher level that existed at the time, both in the city as well as in the central region of the country, by teaching courses in different majors and directing theses on scientific issues.

The same year that CONACYT celebrated its 35 th anniversary, CIO, in turn, celebrated the 25 th anniversary of its foundation. In those 25 years, it has established itself as one of the most important institutions of the world in its field. It is also convenient to point out that at the national level, operation has always been within the frame of the policies that for the promotion of science and technology have been laid out by the federal government and implemented by the Council, and CIO has always positioned itself at the foreground when it comes to applying those policies and translating them into concrete results, which reflects the Center's capability to respond to national and international needs.

So, it is possible to briefly summarize the history of CIO by pointing out that four different researchers have been in charge of the general direction of the Center, each one heading different stages in the life of CIO, which can be outlined as follows:

Consolidation

In September, 1980, during the first meeting of the Ruling Body of CIO, Dr. Daniel Malacara Hernández was appointed General Director, a position that he held until 1989. He was in charge of consolidating one of the first and most successful projects to create scientific institutions outside Mexico City, where up to then most of the technological development of the country had taken place. It was during his term that foundations were laid for a sustained development of top quality scientific work; at first, efforts were focused onto incorporating young researchers who came from national universities, and conditions were created so that they would be able to go abroad and pursue doctorate degrees, only to later return to CIO and strengthen its scientific staff.

In 1983, CIO moved to what would become its definite location, on a piece of land that the city government had donated, and in a building which had been built by the state government. It was at that time that the CIO's first own academic programs were created: the Master's Degree in Science (Optics), in 1984, and the PhD Degree in Science (Optics), in 1987; both programs were supported by the University of Guanajuato, which issued the degrees of those who enrolled in the programs between 1984 and 1999. It is interesting to notice that as of its foundation, and as a result of its scientific and technological labor, CIO first acquired international recognition, then national, and finally local and regional, and that it is in these two last areas where only in more recent times has work started to spread the word about CIO's results and achievements.

That part of CIO's history was framed within the "Indicative Plan of Science and Technology 1976-1982," which had been established by the federal government and implemented by CONACYT, and which emphasized the quest for scientific development, cultural autonomy and technological self-determination at the same time that it pointed at the consolidation of research actions, the creation of infrastructure and the generation of human resources as priority lines. In its time, the "National Plan of Technological and Scientific Development 1984-1988" laid out, in addition to the previous goals, the first steps to promote the creation of links with the national productive environment.

From 1989 to 1997, Dr. Arquímedes Morales Romero was in charge of the general direction. He diversified the research areas and groups, promoted meaningful incorporation of foreign researchers and took the first steps to build teams that would work on the development of applied technology, a project that had as a first stage the generation of strong research groups, both at the Direction of Research as well as at the then Direction of Technological Development and Applied Optics.

On the academic ground, he consolidated the quality of CIO's Master's and Doctorate programs, and managed to get them included into CONACYT'S currently called "Padrón Nacional de Posgrado" (National Register of Graduate Studies). He also started collaboration with other CONACYT centers and with the Institute of Physics of the University of Guanajuato, in order to create the academic programs for the "Posgrado Interinstitucional en Ciencia y Tecnología, PICYT" (Inter-institutional Program of Postgraduate Studies in Science and Technology) that currently leads to Master's and Doctorate degrees at 7 CONACYT Centers in the states of Guanajuato, Querétaro, Jalisco and Coahuila, and also to start the programs for BS degrees in Physics and Physical Engineering, based at the IFUG (Institute of Physics of the University of Guanajuato) in the city of León. Additionally, under the direction of Dr. Morales, our Center took part in the labor of curricular design and planning for the two programs, which started to be formally taught as of 1988.

We must also point out, as a highlight of Dr. Morales's administration, the success of the project that, aiming at strengthening the regional presence of CIO, had as a result, in 1996, the opening of a CIO Unit in the city of Aguascalientes, an action that laid down the foundations for an internal redefinition of areas of responsibility, for a regrouping, within the Direction of Research, of those groups that had affinity with each other, and for the reorganization of the Direction of Linkage and Technological Development. All those actions, their justification, start up, goals, achievements and evaluation were carried out along the guidelines that arose, first, from the ruling instruments already mentioned, and then from the ensuing National Plans of Development that guided the scientific and technological work, as well as its insertion into the productive sector in the period from 1988 to 2000.

From 1997 to 2002, Dr. Luis Efraín Regalado was the Director of CIO, and he strengthened the scientific staff through the incorporation of national and international researchers. Among those actions of creation and strengthening of working teams and groups, he fostered a policy of departmental organization within the research areas, and one of incorporating researchers who had graduated from CIO, only after they had outstandingly completed post-doctoral stays out of the country. In accordance with the national policies that at that time started to gain momentum, he encouraged the orientation of research projects within the frame of the calls issued to attend to regional and national development needs. He implemented institutional management and direction systems based on quality models, and launched quality certification systems for the tasks and goals of the different areas of CIO, such as in the laboratories and workshops of the area of technological applications, as well as in the laboratories of dimensional metrology and of colorimetry, and in areas of specialized services, such as the center's library.

On academic grounds, he generated the conditions for CIO graduates to get their academic degrees not from the University of Guanajuato anymore, with which a tight and solid relationship is kept, but from the Center itself, first through the Secretariat for Public Education ("Secretaría de Educación Pública", SEP), and later directly from CIO, in its role as Public Research Center.

During that period and its overlap with the current one, the prevailing guidelines were those that had been put forth by the new normative focus applicable to science and technology, and that had derived from the Law of Promotion of Scientific and Technological Research (1999), the Special Program of Science and Technology, and the Law of Science and Technology of 2002, as well as from their translation into changes in the conception, objectives, goals and operational structure of CONACYT.

It is in this context that in November, 2002, Dr. Fernando Mendoza Santoyo took on the challenge to increase productivity at CIO and take it to international quality standards in all of CIO's areas, considering that at the time, CIO already had worldwide recognition for all its areas, supported by the number of research products generated (research papers, publications, congresses, etc.) as well as by the quality of those products (measured in terms of their international impact and recognition, among other things).

Regarding scientific labor, he redirected it so that, within the frame of the Special Program of Science and Technology, strategic areas of knowledge would be pushed forward, and that those needs that the country, region or state have regarding scientific, academic, technological and social development would be seen to, without neglecting, but fostering the Center's vocation to cultivate basic science. In the realm of international collaboration actions, he has started a joint project with the University of Arizona to create a bi-national Optics Center. In the academic aspect, he made the commitment to earn for the Center the level   of International Competency (the highest ranking in CONACYT's Register of Graduate Studies), considering as a core part of this strategy the strengthening of the mechanisms used to promote the center and attract students, the curricular modification of the Center's own programs (aiming at timely and appropriately meeting the criteria for end efficiency and productivity pertaining to high quality programs), and the gathering of operational information about the job performance of its graduates in academic and scientific environments through programs and actions geared to formally follow up those graduates. Regarding technological development, he has implemented actions aimed at approaching the social and productive sectors so that Optics can be applied to the solution of problems that are regionally and nationally relevant.

It is worth mentioning that the Center's substantive actions yield results that are measured against previously established goals and indicators, which in due time are assessed by internal and external evaluation bodies, mostly the Ruling Organ, within the frame of the CIO-CONACYT Performance Agreement.

In these evaluation processes, CIO has consistently obtained very positive results, being notorious that during the current administration, the number and quality of the accomplishments have substantially increased, and with them, the rating that the work of the institution and all its members has earned.

Accomplishments

At present, the " Centro de Investigaciones en Optica A.C." is defined as a Public Research Center , with the mission of conducting basic and applied research in Optics, generating top level human resources in this field of knowledge, and fostering scientific culture within society. It has the additional mission to be a Research Center of excellence, with national leadership and international recognition in the field of Optics, occupying a core position in the development of science and technology in Mexico.