Adrià Gómez Valent and Ignasi Pérez Ràfols are the two ICCUB PhD researchers that have been awarded with the Extraordinary PhD prize, assessed and selected by a rigorous tribunal composed by Postdoctoral researchers and professors from UB. Only thesis with the “excellent cum laude” qualification are able to compete in this exceptional prize. Adrià Gómez Valent has been awarded for his thesis "Vacuum energy in Quantum Field Theory and Cosmology", supervised by professor Joan Solà Peracaula. He has studied the class of running vacuum models together with some other dynamical dark energy cosmologies, and their ability to explain the wealth of cosmological observations. For his part, Ignasi Pérez Ràfols, whose research belongs to the Cosmology and Large Scale Structure field, developed the thesis “The cross-correlation among tracers of the underlying large-scale mass distribution in the universe”, under the supervision of professor Jordi Miralda. This excellence prize is given yearly among the best thesis of every faculty, and it is delivered in a formal ceremony with important members of the University’s management and renowned professors.