Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 62 Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences
As the King of Spain, Carlo cannot sit idle all the time.

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

To put it simply, the Second Industrial Revolution is the electrical age, and its main feature is the discovery and widespread use of electricity.

Germany and the United States are both driving countries of the Second Industrial Revolution, which is why their national strength increased rapidly after electrification and surpassed Britain, the driving country of the First Industrial Revolution.

In any case, Spain could not miss the Second Industrial Revolution.

But there is a problem right now, and that is the awkward time we are in.

Most of the famous scientists had not yet been born or were still in school, so they were naturally not within the range that Carlo wanted to win over.

Most of the remaining scientists have achieved certain results, and it is not easy to attract them from abroad to Spain.

After thinking carefully in his mind for a long time, Carlo could only think of two names.

One was Karl Benz, a famous German scientist and entrepreneur who founded Mercedes-Benz, and the other was Gramm, a Belgian-French physicist who truly realized the power generation equipment that could be used in industrial production.

When it comes to generators, the names that come to mind are Faraday and Henry, but these people are more like pioneers, they are the proponents of theories and the builders of experimental devices, and they have not really made generators for industrial use.

Gramm did just that. The electric power industry was built on the two DC and AC generators that Gramm developed, which is why Carlo remembered his name.

With their approximate names and countries, it becomes much easier to investigate these two people.

Carlo called Cardinal Bruno, director of the Royal Security Intelligence Service, and asked him to send personnel to France and Germany to investigate the current situation of Gramm and Karl Benz, and to invite them to come to Spain to work if possible.

After receiving Carlo's order, Cardinal Bruno did not dare to be careless at all and organized people to go to Germany and France for investigation overnight.

The investigation was very difficult. Although it was known that Gramm and Benz were in France and Germany respectively, and were engaged in electrical and mechanical manufacturing work respectively.

But looking for a researcher who has not yet achieved much in the vast countries of France and Germany is like looking for a needle in a haystack, and it also requires some luck to find one.

Considering that it is difficult to accurately find one person among tens of millions of targets, Carlo also assigned additional tasks to Cardiel Bruno.

If it is really impossible to find Gramm and Benz, we can also screen talents in electricity and mechanical manufacturing from Germany and France, and try to attract Spain as much as possible.

In order to attract these talents, Carlo was sincere. The Royal Spanish Academy of Sciences was the institution Carlo prepared for these talents.

As an institution dedicated to scientific research, Carlo donates a portion of research funds to the Royal Academy of Sciences every year. As long as they join the Royal Spanish Academy of Sciences, scientists can apply for scientific research funds for their own research.

In addition, all scientists who join the Royal Academy of Sciences can obtain Spanish citizenship without approval and receive a property in the capital Madrid for free. Scientists of the Royal Academy of Sciences can also choose to join Spanish universities as part-time workers, which will also bring them additional part-time income.

If you have significant scientific research results in the Royal Academy of Sciences, you can be rewarded with a title and a large amount of research and development funds, which means you have a bright future.

Such conditions may not attract scientists who have been valued by governments around the world, but for those impoverished scientists who rely on their own wealth to support their research, it may be a good choice.

Throughout Europe, there were countless scientists who devoted themselves to the study of physics and chemistry, but they rarely had the opportunity to obtain external funding before they became famous for their scientific research achievements.

Even many famous scientists in later generations were poor in the first half of their lives, because their scientific research required a long time and a lot of investment in trial and error, and their own wealth was not enough to support these research.

Carlo did not expect to attract many top talents by relying on the Royal Academy of Sciences. As long as he could attract some scientists of decent level, Carlo's expectations would be met.

After all, at that time, Spain lagged far behind other European countries in terms of talent in physics and chemistry.

Even in later generations, when the number of Nobel Prize winners in Britain, Germany and France reached dozens or even hundreds, the number of Spanish winners was only a pitiful 8, of which 6 were in literature and only 2 in medicine.

Spain's land area is not inferior to that of Britain, France and Germany (mainland), but the reason why it has so few Nobel Prize winners is precisely because the Spanish people were enlightened too late.

The discovery of the New World led Spain into a life of luxury and extravagance, and the gold, silver and treasures shipped from America were all used for the extravagance of the nobility and the church.

The palaces and castles of the nobility and the churches looked magnificent, but Spain's national strength was declining day by day.

What was Spain doing during the Italian Renaissance, the French Enlightenment, and the British Industrial Revolution?

Spain is also strengthening the rule of the monarchy and theocracy, and is making the people ignorant in an attempt to consolidate the royal government, which is characterized by extravagance.

Although it was the world's first empire on which the sun never set, it had earned a huge amount of wealth from the Americas, and it also had colonies like Cuba that continued to generate income, the illiteracy rate of the Spanish government was actually almost the same as that of newly unified Italy.

The reason why Italy's illiteracy rate remains high is that the farmers in southern Italy have lowered the average. If we only count northern Italy, which was originally ruled by the Kingdom of Sardinia, Italy's education situation would be much better than Spain's.

This is also the reason why Primo and Carlo both attach great importance to education, because Spain really lacks talent.

In addition, Spain has a small population. If it does not actively absorb talent from abroad, it will never be able to keep up with other European countries in terms of scientific and technological revolution.

In addition to attracting outstanding foreign scientists to come to Spain, Carlo also had another purpose in establishing the Royal Academy of Sciences, which was to allow these outstanding scientists to teach in Spanish universities, thereby cultivating more outstanding talents in physics and chemistry for Spain.

Attracting talents from abroad can only solve the superficial problem of Spain’s lack of talent. If we want to truly solve the problem of talent shortage, we must start by cultivating local Spanish talents.

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(End of this chapter)