As we were finalizing the introduction to this symposium in late May, a controversy about the academic evaluation system in Spain made headlines internationally and became the topic of discussion in social media. A thirty-year old Spanish physicist had applied for the Ramón y Cajal scholarship-designed to repatriate national scientists-and his application was rejected. The rejection was not unusual since the Ramón y Cajal committee receives scores of first-rate applications annually. But allegedly, soon after being notified of the rejection, he received the prize for best young experimental physicist in Europe, awarded every other year by the European Physical Society.