Visits and Open Doors

During the Science Week (Setmana de la Ciència) 2019, which was between the 8 and 17 of November 2019, the ICMAB received the visit of 4 schools, which amounted a total of 185 students. The students could attend the "Madame Châtelet and her Instagram followers", visit some of our labs and participate in the workshops about "Properties of the Minerals and Periodic Table Elements". 

We received a call from one of the students of 1st BTX of the Institut Marina, from La Llagosta. They wanted to visit us, since they had seen us at the "Fira de la Recerca en Directe" at CosmoCaixa Barcelona. So we agreed they would come and visit us. On Friday 24 May 2019 they came to the ICMAB to discover the "Materials of the future for energy" and to celebrate a EU Energy Day with us. 

The Fundació Catalunya La Pedrera develops the program "Bojos per la Ciència" to open the doors of the most relevant research institutes to the most excellent secondary school students. The ICMAB joined in 2017 the initiative "Bojos per la Física" coordinated by the ICN2, and the IFAE. This year, Ignasi Fina and Jordi Faraudo were in charge of showing piezoelectricity and molecular simulation to the students. 

This year the ICMAB has participated for the third time in the seventh edition of the University Programme FUB+GRAN "Saber per descobrir", organized by the Fundació Universitària del Bages (UVIC-UCC), and addressed to people of more than 55 years old, who have interest in learning more. On Wednesday, 29 May 2019, the students came to visit the ICMAB to see some of our scientific and technical services. 

On Wednesday, 27 March 2019, we received the visit of Engineering Undergraduate students from the Escola Universitària Salesiana de Sarrià (EUSS) (Salesian University School of Sarrià). The EUSS is a center afiliated to the UAB created in 1994 and located in Barcelona. Xavier Obradors gave a first overview to the ICMAB research and then the students could visit some of our labs.

On Friday, 1 February 2019, students from the Centre d'Estudis Roca school, in Barcelona, came to the ICMAB to discover the materials of the future in solar energy! The visit consisted in a first talk from Mariano Campoy-Quiles, researcher at the ICMAB, followed by a visit to four different labs: SEM, XRD, AFM and NANOPTO labs. The visit is in the framework of the ESCOLAB programme of the Ajuntament de Barcelona. 

On Friday, 14 December 2018, 25 secondary school students from the "Escola Vedruna Gràcia" visited the ICMAB thanks to the ESCOLAB programme. The students, all from the scientific branch, could enjoy a talk on "Nanomaterials for nanomedicine" by Anna Laromaine, from the NN group, and then visiti some of our Scientific Services.

On Tuesday, 27 November 2018, we had a very special visit in our Institute: "the scientists" class formed by 24 six-year old students from "La Trama" school in Sabadell visited us. It was a fantastic visit. All the kids were very happy to become real scientists for a day, and to visit the laboratories, the clean room, the glove boxes, the microscopes and even to perform an X-ray diffraction experiment to discover what is sand made of. 

During two mornings, 12 and 13 November 2018, the ICMAB hosted the workshop for secondary school students "Become a materials detective" (Converteix-te en un detectiu de materials) to celebrate the Science Week 2018. Four classes of 2nd ESO from the IES Vallès (Sabadell) came to ICMAB by train and became scientists for a day. 

On Thursday 25 October, the students from 2n BTX from the "Col·legi Maristes de Montserrat" (Lleida) took the bus and came to our center to spend an afternoon learning about nanotechnology and supermaterials! They could enjoy the visit of the "Matheroes" exhibition, a talk from one of our researchers, and a visit to our installations.

On 15-16 November 2018, the members of the ICMAB Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) visited our Institute to scientifically evaluate the research lines and the overall performance of the Institute. In this year's visit, three research lines were evaluated: RL2: Superconductors for power applications; RL4: Molecular electronics; and RL5: Multifunctional nanostructured biomaterials.

The "Societat Catalana de Química" (SCQ-IEC) organizes every year the contest on the best research chemistry projects for secondary school students (Premis als Treballs de Recerca de Batxillerat dins l'Àmbit de la Química). The award for the finalist students is a two-week scientific internship in a Catalan research center or university during July 2018. 

This year the ICMAB hosted seven (7) students from the program "Joves i Ciència" from Fundació Catalunya La Pedrera: Roger, Pilar, Antoni, Pere, Mariona, Anastasia and Arnau. They came to our Institute to do some research stays with some of our researchers, in the fields of spintronics, solar cells, superconducting materials, porous materials for energy, sustainable chemistry and crystallography. 

On Thursday, 5 July, the students participating at the ICFO School on Emerging Photovoltaics (2-6 July 2018) came to ICMAB from 3 to 6 pm to visit our research labs. The ICMAB researchers and PhD fellows guided the participants through the different labs and explained them the research performed in our Institute on photovoltaics, including organic solar cells, photonic crystals, perovskites, and oxide photovoltaic materials, and the equipment and facilities for materials characterization. 

On Wednesday, 30 May 2018, the ICMAB received the visit of the students belonging to the University Program FUB+GRAN, organized by the Fundació Universitària del Bages (UViC-UCC). The students of this program are all over 55 years old, and they all are curious minds and interested about all different kind of topics.

The Fundació Catalunya La Pedrera has developed the program "Bojos per la Ciència" to open the doors of the most relevant research institutes to the most excellent secondary school students. ICMAB joined in 2017 ICN2, IFAE and UAB for the second edition of "Bojos per la Física" and continued this year within this program, which has been a real success.

On Friday, March 9 2018, one day after the International Women's Day, the students from 2n BTX of the high school Infanta Isabel in Barcelona visited our Institute.

A surprise awaited them: instead of having the usual seminar from one of our researchers, they had 12 researchers from the Institute waiting from them. But this 12 women did not give them a talk. Instead, they represented the play "Madame Châtelet and her Instagram followers".

On Friday, 16 February, we received the visit of a class of 1st BTX students from Institut Joaquima Pla i Farreras (Sant Cugat) who came to learn about "The nanomaterials of the future for energy" and, particularly, those for batteries. Dr. Dino Tonti, from the Solid State Chemistry Group, gave a talk on nanotechnology, materials for energy and focused on batteries, and on his research on lithium and sodium batteries. 

On 19 January 2018 we received the visit of a group of highschool students from Institut Castellbisbal. The students listened first to our Communication and Outreach Officer, who welcomed them and explained them where they were and the work we do at ICMAB, and then to a seminar on "The materials of the future for nanomedicine" given by Dr. Judith Guasch, from the NANOMOL group. The seminar was followed by a visit to four of our laboratories: X-ray diffraction, AFM, SoftLab and the lab of Dr. Judith Guasch. 

On December 15 the Institut Bisbe Sevilla, from Calella, visited ICMAB and spent the morning with us. Marta Mas-Torrent, researcher at the NANOMOL group gave the seminar on "Nanomaterials of the future for electronics", in which she first introduced the scientific career and the concepts of nanoscience and nanotechnology, and then showed the students her research in this field. 

The IES Pere Calders, at the Campus UAB, visited our Institute on November 17, during the Setmana de la Ciència (Science Week). More than 30 students between 16-18 years could visit some of our scientific services, laboratories, and listen to the lecture given by Dr. Anna Laromaine, from the Nanoparticles and Nanocomposites Group (NN) on "Cellulose: a versatile material". 

On 13-14 November, the members of the ICMAB Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) visited our Institute to scientifically evaluate the research lines and the overall performance of the Institute. In this year's visit, the research lines evaluated were RL1: Sustainable energy conversion and storage systems, and RL3: Oxide electronics. 

This Friday we had the visit of more than 25 students from IES Consell de Cent (Barcelona), who joined the ESCOLAB programme to visit universities and research centers in Catalonia.

PhD students, post-doctoral and young researchers, as well as engineers and technicians, from both academia and industry will be allowed to spend a week on a laboratory of the NFFA-Europe Consortium to gain hands-on experience of advanced services for nanoscience and nanotechnology.

El passat 17 de juliol vam tenir l'agradable visita de la Maria Torras, la noia de Manresa que va obtenir la millor nota de la Selectivitat a Catalunya, juntament amb tres altres noies: un 9,8!

Hendrik Ohldag, IEEE Magnetics Society Distinguished Lecturer for 2017, visited our Institute on June 27 and delivered the talk on "Ultrafast and Very Small: Discover Nanoscale Magnetism With Picosecond Time Resolution Using X-Rays". 

The ICMAB hosts this year six students from the UAB Argó Program. They will be with us during the mornings, from June 26 until July 13.

Last 21st – 22nd November, the members of ICMAB’s Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) made their first visit to the Institute to evaluate the different research lines and the overall performance of the Centre.

Los jovenes del programa Joves y Ciéncia de la Fundació Catalunya La Pedrera han estado durante varios días en el ICMAB y han aprendido sobre el funcionamiento del centro, sus equipos y su personal.

Visits and open doors, OUTREACH

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NFFA-Europe project (www.nffa.eu) is the first open-access infrastructure in Europe to perform research at the nanoscale. As part of the training activities, a Summer School devoted to "Nanoscience Foundries and Fine Analysis (NFFA), available instruments and techniques" took place at the Engineering School of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) between 18th and 22nd of July.

Un año mas hemos acogido en el ICMAB una nueva edición del programa ARGO. Durante varios días los jovenes participantes han conocido el centro, han trabajado codo con codo con investigadores y han aprendido como es el día a día de la profesión científica.

El pasado viernes, 10 de junio, nos visitaron un grupo de estudiantes de la facultad de Material Engineering de la Purdue University (Indiana, USA) acompañados por la Prof. Lia Stanciu y también del Prof. Jean-Louis Marty de la Université Perpignan (Francia).

En el último día del Festival 10 a la menos nueve el ICMAB como colaborador organizó una visita guiada a sus instalaciones. Los visitantes pudieron conocer nuestros equipos técnicos y a nuestro personal, el cual les explicó su funcionamiento y qué ciencias intervienen en las investigaciones de nuestro día a día.