{"id":264205,"date":"2026-07-02T13:00:40","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T11:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cintecx.uvigo.es\/miguel-concheiro-protagonista-del-mes-de-julio-en-el-calendario-ilustrado-de-cintecx-la-investigacion-es-un-trabajo-muy-gratificante-pero-hay-que-saber-poner-limites\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T13:12:00","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T11:12:00","slug":"miguel-concheiro-protagonista-del-mes-de-julio-en-el-calendario-ilustrado-de-cintecx-la-investigacion-es-un-trabajo-muy-gratificante-pero-hay-que-saber-poner-limites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cintecx.uvigo.es\/en\/miguel-concheiro-protagonista-del-mes-de-julio-en-el-calendario-ilustrado-de-cintecx-la-investigacion-es-un-trabajo-muy-gratificante-pero-hay-que-saber-poner-limites\/","title":{"rendered":"Miguel Concheiro, July\u2019s Featured Researcher in the CINTECX Illustrated Calendar: \u00abResearch Is a Very Rewarding Profession, but It Is Important to Set Limits\u00bb"},"content":{"rendered":"

Miguel Concheiro Casti\u00f1eira is the featured researcher for July in the CINTECX illustrated calendar<\/a>. Through a new installment of <\/span>Open Camera CINTECX to Women and Men in STEM<\/strong><\/a>, an initiative supported by the Awareness-Raising Grants of the Equality Unit of the University of Vigo, the researcher offers a personal perspective on his scientific career and the challenges of work-life balance in academia.<\/span><\/p>\n

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A researcher in the Energy Technologies Group at CINTECX and a lecturer at the School of Industrial Engineering, Concheiro works on several research lines related to energy, with much of his activity focused on the study of fluid boiling processes. His research career began almost by chance during the final years of his Engineering degree, when he discovered the work being carried out by the university\u2019s research groups.<\/p>\n

Until then, he had always known he wanted to become an engineer, but he had never considered a career in research. It was while completing his final-year project that he first came into contact with this field, an experience that eventually led him to pursue a PhD and develop his entire professional career at the University of Vigo.<\/p>\n

Today, his daily life is divided between teaching, research, and caring for his two children. This routine has profoundly changed the way he manages his time and understands his work. While he once spent more hours on campus, he now seeks to adapt part of his workload so that he can spend more time with his family, without giving up a profession he describes as especially fulfilling.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Balancing Family Life Without Giving Up Research<\/span><\/p>\n

Becoming a father led Concheiro to rethink the way he manages his time. Although he acknowledges that having more available hours could translate into greater scientific output, he strongly believes in the importance of setting boundaries and preserving space for personal life.<\/span><\/p>\n

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In his view, research is an activity that can always absorb more time than is available. For that reason, he considers it essential to prevent work from taking over the entire day and to find a long-term sustainable balance.<\/p>\n

During the interview, he also highlighted the importance of paternity leave, especially in his case, as he did not have a nearby family support network. \u201cIt was just my wife and me in Vigo. The child was either with her or with me,\u201d he recalls. Both he and his partner made full use of the leave periods available after the birth of their children, a measure that allowed them to face the first months of parenthood under better conditions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

More Rational Schedules to Support Work-Life Balance<\/h3>\n

Although he values the progress made in terms of equality and work-life balance, he believes there is still room for improvement, particularly in the organization of university teaching. <\/span>According to Concheiro, research offers a certain degree of flexibility to adapt schedules to family needs, whereas teaching is much more constrained by timetables and time slots that can extend throughout the day. \u201cSome days I start at nine in the morning, and on others I finish at eight or eight-thirty in the evening. That definitely makes work-life balance more difficult,\u201d he points out. In this regard, he advocates for more rational and clearly defined schedules.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Despite these challenges, Concheiro encourages younger generations to explore the world of research. He believes it is a profession capable of providing great personal and professional satisfaction, both through scientific achievements and through the opportunity to contribute to the education of future professionals. It is a demanding career, but also a deeply vocational one\u2014one that continues to inspire the same enthusiasm he felt when he first discovered, near the end of his degree, that research could also be a way of helping to build the future.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The researcher from the Energy Technologies Group and lecturer at the School of Industrial Engineering of the University of Vigo shares his experience balancing a scientific career, teaching, and family life through C\u00e1mara Abierta.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":264196,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-264205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-duvi-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cintecx.uvigo.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cintecx.uvigo.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cintecx.uvigo.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cintecx.uvigo.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cintecx.uvigo.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264205"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cintecx.uvigo.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":264207,"href":"https:\/\/cintecx.uvigo.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264205\/revisions\/264207"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cintecx.uvigo.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cintecx.uvigo.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cintecx.uvigo.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cintecx.uvigo.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}