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  Two of the MIP participants alongside Hannah Cairo (centre). Photo: David Martín/ICMAT.

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  Launch event for the MIP, featuring the four students from the first cohort alongside David Martín (on the left in the photo). Photo: Laura Moreno/ICMAT.

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  One of the MIP mini-courses, taught by Antonio Córdoba (ICMAT-UAM). Image: Álvaro Minguito/ICMAT.

The ICMAT has brought the Mathematics Intensive Programme (MIP) to a close, Spain’s pioneering intensive training programme for undergraduate mathematics students. Over the course of this inaugural year, the four founding students of the initiative (Gonzalo San Vicente, Iván López Navarro, Justo Juan Salcedo Otero and Sofía Paz Chacón) combined regular meetings with their tutors and advanced courses with encounters with visiting researchers at the centre. All of this gave them the chance to talk informally with mathematicians at very different stages of their careers.

In one of the most recent of these encounters, the students had the opportunity to talk with Hannah Cairo, a young mathematician who rose to international prominence in 2025 after disproving, at just 17 years old, a conjecture in the field of harmonic analysis that had remained unsolved for more than four decades. Cairo was one of the speakers at the ICMAT’s JAE Mathematics School, held at the ICMAT from 22 June to 3 July.

“I think one important lesson they take away from these informal conversations that have taken place throughout the year is that you don’t need to be a particular age, background or gender to achieve great results in mathematics. What unites all of us who devote ourselves to this is our passion for the discipline,” explains David Martín de Diego, coordinator of the MIP together with María Ángeles García Ferrero.

A second edition already under way

The MIP is aimed at students beginning a Mathematics degree at a university in the Community of Madrid, and runs throughout the four years of the degree. The programme, which is free for students, culminates in a specific qualification issued by the CSIC.

The second edition of the programme will begin in October 2026, welcoming five new students.
This text is an automatic translation from the original Spanish version.