The Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) is the largest body for scientific research in Spain, with more than 100 centres covering all fields of knowledge. Its National Biotechnology Centre (CNB) is the leading biological research facility in the public domain in Spain and a leading Spanish excellence centre in terms of citations of published articles. Since its founding in 1992, it has maintained programmes in microbial biotechnology, structural biology, plant molecular biology, molecular and cellular biology, immunology and oncology.