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LOOKING TOWARD EUROPE

The Junta para Ampliación de Estudios e Investigaciones Científicas (JAE) was chaired by the Nobel Prize in Medicine Santiago Ramón y Cajal, with José Castillejo as its secretary and chief executive officer. Its mission was to promote scientific exchange with the most advanced countries by providing scholarships to young graduates to study in some of the most prestigious centers in the world.

Between 1907 and 1939, the JAE awarded some 3,500 grants. The countries that received a greater number of fellows were France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Italy, Austria, and the United States, and most favored subjects were: Education, Social Sciences and Humanities, Health Sciences, Law, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, and Natural Sciences. [These data are available on the online archive of the JAE: http://archivojae.edaddeplata.org/jae_app/]

In Spain, the JAE created new scientific and educational institutions, a network of centers such as:

• The Instituto Nacional de Ciencias, directed by Santiago Ramón y Cajal, with Blas Cabrera in the Instituto de Física y Química, and  Ignacio Bolívar in the Museo de Ciencias Naturales
• The Centro de Estudios Históricos, directed by Ramón Menéndez Pidal.
• The Instituto-Escuela, an experimental center dedicated to the reform of secondary education and the training of teachers.
• The Residencia de Estudiantes.

The JAE was the largest enterprise of those inspired by the Institución Libre de Enseñanza (ILE) and represented the culmination of the projects carried out by Giner de los Ríos and his colleagues for the modernization of Spanish society. Many of the values promoted by the ILE and carried out by the JAE coincide with those ideals that made possible the transition to democracy in Spain and its political and social development, together with other ideologies that have contributed to Spain today.