Empire Rising: Spain

Chapter 62: Chapter 61: Royal Spanish Academy of Sciences

As the King of Spain, Carlo cannot remain idle.

After much thought, Carlo decided to strengthen his talent reserve and lay a solid foundation for the Second Industrial Revolution.

The Second Industrial Revolution, in essence, marks the era of electricity, with its main symbol being the discovery and widespread use of electrical power.

Germany and the United States are the driving forces behind the Second Industrial Revolution, which is why both countries saw their national strength rapidly rise post-electrification, surpassing the United Kingdom, the pioneering nation of the First Industrial Revolution.

In any case, Spain cannot afford to miss out on the Second Industrial Revolution.

However, there is a problem at present, which is the awkward timing.

Most well-known scientists have not yet been born or are still in school, and naturally, they are not within Carlo’s target of recruitment.

The remaining scientists have mostly achieved certain accomplishments, making it difficult to recruit them from abroad to Spain.

After carefully pondering for a while, Carlo could only think of two names.

One is Karl Benz, a renowned German scientist and entrepreneur who founded Mercedes-Benz, and the other is Graham, a Belgian-born French physicist who truly realized power generation equipment for industrial production.

When it comes to generators, the familiar names are Faraday and Henry. But these people were more like pioneers, theorists, and experimental device creators, having never truly manufactured generators for industrial use.

Graham, however, accomplished this feat. The electrical industry is built on the two DC and AC generators developed by Graham, which is why Carlo remembered his name.

With a general idea of the names and countries, it became much easier to investigate these two individuals.

Carlo summoned Kadir Bruno, the director of the Royal Security Intelligence Bureau, instructing him to send people to France and Germany to investigate the current status of Graham and Karl Benz and to invite them to work in Spain as much as possible.

Upon receiving Carlo’s orders, Kadir Bruno, without daring to take any chances, organized personnel overnight to investigate in Germany and France.

The investigation was challenging. Although they knew Graham and Benz were respectively involved in electrical and mechanical manufacturing in France and Germany,

finding a researcher who had yet to achieve significant success in vast France and Germany was like finding a needle in a haystack, requiring a bit of luck.

Considering the difficulty of pinpointing an individual among millions, Carlo also assigned Kadir Bruno an additional task.

If it truly proved impossible to find Graham and Benz, they could also screen for talent in electrical and mechanical manufacturing in Germany and France and try to recruit them to Spain.

To attract such talents, Carlo was sincerely earnest. The Royal Spanish Academy of Sciences was an institution Carlo prepared for these talents.

As an institution dedicated to scientific research, Carlo donates a portion of research funding to the Royal Academy of Sciences every year. Scientists who join the Royal Spanish Academy of Sciences can apply for research funding for their projects.

In addition, all scientists who join the Royal Academy of Sciences can acquire Spanish nationality without approval and receive a free house in the capital, Madrid.

Scientists at the Royal Academy of Sciences can choose to work part-time at Spanish universities, earning additional income.

With significant scientific achievements at the Royal Academy, one can also be rewarded with noble titles and a substantial amount of research funding, promising a bright future.

Such conditions might not attract already valued scientists by other governments, but for those struggling to support their research on their savings, it might be a suitable choice.

Throughout Europe, countless scientists are devoted to physical and chemical research. However, before truly achieving scientific breakthroughs, they rarely have opportunities to receive external funding.

Even many famous scientists in later generations had impoverished first halves of their lives due to the long-term and substantial investments needed for research without sufficient personal wealth to support these studies.

Carlo did not expect to attract many top talents solely through the Royal Academy of Sciences. Attracting some competent scientists would already meet Carlo’s expectations.

After all, at this point, Spain lags significantly behind other European countries in physics and chemistry talent.

Even in later generations, when the Nobel Prize winners in the UK, Germany, and France reached dozens or even hundreds, the Spaniards only achieved a mere 8 awards, of which 6 were in literature and 2 in medicine.

The reason for such a small number of Nobel laureates in Spain, which shares comparable territory with the UK, France, and Germany, is due to Spain’s late enlightenment.

The discovery of the New World led Spain into a life of extravagance, squandering the gold and silver wealth from America on lavish spending by the nobility and the Church.

The palaces of the nobility and the churches of the Church appear resplendent, but Spain’s national strength declined day by day.

During the Italian Renaissance, the French Enlightenment, and the British Industrial Revolution, what was Spain doing?

Spain was still reinforcing royal and religious rule, keeping the populace ignorant in a futile attempt to consolidate the extravagant kingdom government.

Despite being the world’s first Sun Never Sets Empire, having amassed enormous wealth from America, and owning continuously profitable colonies like Cuba, Spain’s illiteracy rate was shockingly similar to the newly unified Italy.

Italy’s high illiteracy rate was mainly due to Southern Italian farmers dragging down the average. If only considering Northern Italy under the original Sardinian Kingdom, Italy’s education was far superior to Spain’s.

This is why both Prim and Carlo placed great emphasis on education, as Spain truly lacked talent.

Coupled with a relatively small population, if Spain does not actively recruit talents from abroad, it will never keep pace with other European countries in the technological revolution.

Besides seeking to attract outstanding foreign scientists to Spain, Carlo’s establishment of the Royal Academy of Sciences also aimed to integrate these excellent scientists into Spanish universities for teaching, thereby nurturing more exceptional talents in physics and chemistry for Spain.

Recruiting talent from abroad only superficially addresses Spain’s talent shortage; a fundamental solution requires cultivating local Spanish talent.