Commemorations

How has the lockdown, restrictions, and the work from home lifestyle affected our research?

Monday, 16 March 2020 was not like any other Monday.

News came from China and Italy, about a fast spreading virus that required strict lockdowns to avoid its spread. It was clear than sooner, rather than later, actions would have to be taken everywhere else.

The 18th of November is the date chosen to highlight the discriminations that people in the LGBT+ collective suffer in the field of science and a day to show the support to this community. In face of this discrimination, members of the PRISMA association offer 10 measures that we can apply to help fight prejudice and lessen its consequences.

Thursday, 22 October 2020, at 7 pm, there will be a public session for the admission of the elected academic Dr. Enric Canadell Casanova, ICMAB researcher, who will read his welcoming report entitled: "Solid conductors of low dimensionality", and will be answered on behalf of the corporation by the academic Excm. Mr. Santiago Olivella i Nel·lo.

SusChem is the European Technology Platform for Sustainable Chemistry. It is a forum that brings together industry, academia, policy makers and the wider society. On two virtual sessions on 5 and 7 October 2020 the SusChem-Spain General Assembly took place. M. Rosa Palacín was invited in a roundtable about "Chemistry and Energy", in which she talked about new battery technolgies linked with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). 

Sant Jordi will be a slightly different experience this year, but that does not mean that we shouldn not celebrate it. At the ICMAB we wanted to focus on one of the most important parts of this festivity: books!

To celebrate the 20th anniversaty of the CSIC "Residència d'Investigadors" in Barcelona, the institution has prepared the document "Reptes globals: perspectives des de la Ciència" (Global challenges: perspectives from Science), in which different experts in several fields explain how they see some of the most important challenges that our society is facing. From the ICMAB, Xavier Obradors writes about "Advanced Functional Nanomaterials: the key for the fourth Industrial Revolution". The document is available in Spanish and Catalan. 

Our traditional photo contest, FOTICMAB, is already a consolidated activity and receives every year a high participation. This year, we had three categories: scientific, artistic and humoristic. The artistic category was the one with the highest participation (27 photos), followed by our most favourite scientific category (12 photos) and a humoristic category, with (only) 5 photos. We also received one video in the ClowntICMAB video category! 

Energy Days are organised by local public and private organisations to celebrate the EU Sustainable Energy Week (EUSEW) 2019, organised by the European Commission, between 17-21 June 2019. Energy Days are activities and events that promote clean energy transition. Any activity can be an Energy Day – from a workshop, to a competition, to a tour of a power station – provided it engages citizens and energy stakeholders in building the Energy Union. At the ICMAB, our Energy Day will be on June 17, 2019, with the ICMAB Periodical Lecture given by Jordi Llorca, on Hydrogen!

On 5 June 2019 we celebrate the World Environment Day to encourage worldwide awareness and action to protect our environment. Since it began in 1974, the event has grown to become a global platform for public outreach that is widely celebrated in over 100 countries. The event called "Environment and Society" is organized at IDAEA-CSIC. Nora Ventosa, researcher at the ICMAB and vice-president of the SCQ, will open the event, which has the Periodic Table as main theme, and in which all the speakers are women scientists!

To celebrate this year's Europe Day, we wanted to give visibility to the European projects in which we work here at ICMAB, which represent some of the work performed at the Institute on advanced functional materials for energy, electronics and nanomedicine. Do you want to know more about them?

At the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB) we celebrate Sant Jordi 2019 with the second edition of the Book Exchange. This year, we also included two bookmarks to give as a souvenir to all our staff.

Our traditional photo contest, FOTICMAB, is already a consolidated activity and receives every year a high participation. This year, we had three categories: scientific, artistic and "ICMAB moments". The artistic category was the one with the highest participation (48 photos), followed by our most favourite scientific category (19 photos) and the recovered "ICMAB moments" with 10 photos.

The winner of the scientific category is the photo you can see above; "Photonic leaf" by Cristiano Matricardi. "Rainbow", by Laia Soler won the artistic category, and "¡Con una sonrisa se trabaja mejor!" by Adriana Kyvik won the "ICMAB moments" category. The three winners are all PhD researchers at the Institute. The winner of each cateogory received a smartbox to enjoy a dinner for two. 

Let's see the story behind each one of the winning and finalist photos: