The groundbreaking of the Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Complex, in February 2014, was among the first of Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s tenure.

“We did it next door on the parking garage and it was exciting,” he says Monday, during a ceremony for ISEC’s grand opening. “It offered a window into the power of research and higher education, which will take us to new heights.

“This will push our city in further directions, and the young people educated in this very building are the people we want to keep here in the city of Boston because of their minds and their passions,” Walsh says. “This will bring scientists from all over the world to make vital discoveries, and to connect our communities” across Boston and beyond.

Walsh highlights the collaboration, the diversity of thought, and the partnerships with national science organizations that Northeastern—and ISEC in particular—fosters.

“I look forward to generations of new discoveries, of new scientists emerging from these walls,” he says. “And if you didn’t know, the scientists that will walk through these doors come from all over the world. We have to make sure that that continues to happen.”

Walsh expounds on the complex’s role in fostering scientific discovery and innovation for scores of Boston students to come. “I look around this building, this beautiful building,” Walsh says, “and what strikes me is what’s really beautiful are the young minds that are going to walk through these doors, that are going to do great things.”