Centro de Estudios Científicos

Centro de Estudios Científicos is a private, non-profit corporation based in Valdivia, Chile, devoted to the development, promotion and diffusion of scientific research. CECs research areas include biophysics, molecular physiology, theoretical physics, glaciology and climate change. The centre was created in 1984 as Centro de Estudios Científicos de Santiago, with a grant of 150,000 dollars a year from the Tinker Foundation of New York City. In 2004-2005 glaciologists from CECs organized the Chilean South Pole Expedition in collaboration with the Chilean Navy and Instituto Antártico Chileno. CECs was founded in Santiago but is since 2000 housed in the recently modernized, German-style Hotel Schuster located by Valdivia River. Claudio Bunster, a physicist and winner of Chile's National Prize for Exact Sciences, is the director of CECs.