Centro de Estudios Científicos
 | |
| Abbreviation | CECS |
|---|---|
| Formation | 1984 |
| Type | private non-profit corporation |
| Purpose | scientific research |
| Location | |
Official language | Spanish, English |
Director | Claudio Bunster |
Staff | 80 |
| Website | www.cecs.cl |
Centro de Estudios Científicos (English: Center for Scientific Studies) also known by its acronym CECS 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 150,000 dollars a year for each year of three from the Tinker Foundation of New York. 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 in Exact Sciences, is the Director of CECS.
In 2014 CECs discovered what would be a subglacial lake in the West Antarctica, They investigated and concluded after a year that it is a lake, which was named Lake CECs in honor of the institution, was published in "Geophysical Research Letters" on May 22, 2015 validating the discovery. The authors of the discovery are: Andrés Rivera, Jose Uribe, Rodrigo Zamora and Jonathan Oberreuter.[1]