Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Spanish National Research Council, known as CSIC, is the largest public institution dedicated to research in Spain and the third largest in Europe. It develops and promotes scientific and technological progress, working with Spanish and foreign partners across the full chain from basic research to transferring knowledge into the productive sector.
CSIC was established in 1939 by one of the first governments of Francisco Franco, built from the assets of the earlier JAE, which had run since 1907. Its founding charter set the goal of restoring the classical and Christian unity of the sciences that it said had been destroyed in the eighteenth century.
José María Albareda headed CSIC from its founding until his death in 1966. He was one of the earliest members of Opus Dei and a close friend of its founder, Josemaría Escrivá, and was ordained a priest in 1959; Manuel Lora-Tamayo, Spain's minister of Education from 1962 to 1968, succeeded him.
CSIC employs about 6 percent of all staff working in research and development in Spain, yet it generates roughly 20 percent of the country's total scientific production.
CSIC administers six Spanish facilities classified as Singular Scientific and Technological Infrastructures: the Calar Alto Astronomical Observatory, the Doñana Reserve Biological Station, the Hespérides and RV Sarmiento de Gamboa research vessels, the Juan Carlos I Antarctic Base, and a micro and nanofabrication clean room at the Microelectronics Institute of Barcelona. Spain also takes part in two European facilities, the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility and the Max von Laue-Paul Langevin Institute.
CSIC built the TWINS module, short for Temperature and Winds for InSight, which flew aboard NASA's InSight Mars lander. The lander touched down on the 26th of November 2018, and TWINS monitors weather conditions at the landing site.
The CSIC headquarters building serves as the exterior of the Royal Mint of Spain in the Spanish television series La Casa De Papel, known internationally as Money Heist.