After another year, we look back and see how was this year's scientific research. More than 220 articles, which makes a total of more than 5,400 publications and more than 145,000 citations since the Institue's foundation, in 1986. The most cited articles published in 2019 are shown in this post. Do you want to know which ones are they? From FCC-hh, oxide electronics, perovskites, oxide thin films, organic field-effect transistors and much more! 

The last issue of the journal of the Catalan Chemical Society (Revista de la Societat Catalana de Química) includes two articles from ICMAB researchers. The first one is about graphene oxide nanocomposites decorated with superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles, and the second one is about the European project "Smart-4-Fabry", which develops a new nanomedicine for the treatment of the Fabry disease. The articles are written in Catalan. We encourage you to have a look at them!

This year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to three great scientists for the developement of Li-ion batteries. The Catalan Chemical Society (SCQ) wanted to dedicate this year's Christmas Conference to this fact, and invited M. Rosa Palacín to give the keynote lecture on this topic. The event took place on Thursday, 19 December 2019 at the IEC (Institut d'Estudis Catalans), in Barcelona. 

Carbon nanocapsules, filled with stable Samarium atoms, are activated with neutrons just before entering the body. This novel nanomaterial-based system is effective for both biomedical imaging and cancer radiotherapy. 

On the occasion of the "Marató de TV3: Minories que fan una Majoria", which is this year devoted to rare diseases, we would like to show you a project in which we participate and which tackles a rare disease: the SMART-4-FABRY project. One of the main objectives of the project is to use nanotechnology to increase the efficiency of the current treatment for the Fabry disease, based on the GLA enzyme. Nora Ventosa and her team, from CIBER-BBN and NANOMOL group at ICMAB-CSIC, coordinate the project, in which fourteen partners from different countries participate.

Every year the UAB organizes the Nobel Prize 2019conferences to talk about the science topics of the Nobel Prize. This year, M. Rosa Palacín, ICMAB researcher, will give the talk about the Nobel Prize 2019 in Chemistry, which was given to J. B. Goodenough, M. S. Whittingham and A. Yoshino for the Lithium-ion Batteries. The talks will be on Tuesday, 10 December, at 12 pm at the "Sala d'actes". 

Researchers at IBEC and ICMAB develop a flexible, cheap and biocompatible transistor platform able to record an electrocardiogram of cells and micro-tissues during long periods of time. The platform, based on organic transistor technology (EGOFET), can also measure the effect of drugs on beating cells, as cardiomyocytes, opening the door to several applications such as implantable devices for health.

The Catalan Association of Scientific Communication (ACCC), together with many research centers and universities, including the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB), have initiated an art project that will represent in a different way thw world of nanotechnology: NANOCAEDRE. Susagna Ricart, from the ICMAB, participates in this project with her expertise in the superconducting phenomena. The presentation of the project will take place at the Basilica Sants Màrtirs Just i Pastor (Barcelona), on Tuesday, 10 December, at 7 pm.

A new protocol from Gervasi Herranz and the MULFOX group at ICMAB shows how magnetic fields can change the propagation of light in confined nanostructured materials and reveal enhanced optical responses. This new protocol is published as a VIDEO-ARTICLE at the Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE). The new protocol allows to directly study how magnetization changes the photonic response.

On Tuesday, 3 December 2019, the ICMAB organizes an event to talk and share experirences on ERC projects called "European Research Council (ERC) funding opportunities – a 360° overview". The event will count with the presence of Nadine Vermorel, from the ERC Executive Agency (ERCEA) and with Lucía Benito, from the CSIC European Program. Five of the ICMAB ERC grantees will talk about their ERC experience from their own point of view. Come and join us, if you want to know more about funding opportunities for these ERC excellent projects!

We would like to congratulate our colleagues from the NanoEduca programme, created by the Universitat de Barcelona (UB), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Institut Català de Nanociència i Nanotecnologia (ICN2) and Centre de Recursos Pedagògics Específics de Suport a la Innovació i la Recerca Educativa (CESIRE), for the 2018 National Award on Science Communication (Premi Nacional de Comunicació Científica 2018), which they received last night, Tuesday 3 December 2019, at the TNC. 

The Châtelet team is in YouTube! Thanks to the funding received by the FGCSIC call "Cuenta la Ciencia", we have been able to produce this video and share it with you! Please feel free to share it with your contacts! 

Anna Laromaine, researcher at the NN Group at ICMAB, and one of the Top 100 women leaders in Spain (MujeresyCía), will be at "El Pais Con Tu Futuro" event next 18-19 December in Madrid, to talk in front of thousands of students who are about to decide their future. Good luck, Anna!

On Monday, 25 November 2019, a gathering in the entrance of the ICMAB building was announced between 11 and 11:15 am to show respect to the victims and concern for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. Members of the ICMAB Gender Equality Committee read the Statement that the Gender Equality Committee and the Committee of Women and Science of the CSIC had prepared, on the occasion of this international day.

On Friday, 22 November 2019, the Kursaal Theater in Manresa hosted the Graduation Event of the 113 students that finalized the studies at the Escola Politècnica Superior d'Enginyeria de Manresa (EPSEM) at the UPC Manresa. Xavier Obradors, ICMAB Director, was the "godfather" of the event, together with Ricard Font Hereu, President of the FGC. The event was a great celebration for the UPC students, who now face their future with multiple options!

On November 22-23, 2019, representatives from all of the Severo Ochoa and María de Maeztu Excellence Centres and Units met at the ‘100xCiencia4’ Meeting in Donostia/San Sebastián (Spain) to share experiences around this year's topic, which is "What is science doing for you? Building bridges between science and society".

During the Science Week 2019, in November, six of our researchers brought scientific research closer to the young students aged 15-17 years old within the framework of the programme "A researcher in your classroom". They went to five different highschools and gave a talk to the students, who had the opportunity to learn more about nanoscience and nanotechnology and about what is it like to be a scientist.

Clara Viñas and Francesc Teixidor were in Sfax (Tunisia), where they gave Plenary Talks at the Fourth International Conference of Engineering Sciences for Biology and Medicine (ESBM 2019) and celebrated the opening of the new school year of the "École supérieure polytechnique internationale privée de Sfax-ESPIN" as partner professors. 

The First Annual Meeting of PhD researchers in Physics at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona(TADeF) will take place next 20-21 November 2019 at the UAB Factulty of Science. From the ICMAB, Teresa Puig (SUMAN group) will give one of the keynote talks on "High Temperature Superconductors: Complex materials with novel physics opportunities". Martí Gibert, PhD researcher at the NANOPTO group, will participate in the meeting with the short talk "Near Infrared Organic Photodetectors based on Enhanced Charge Transfer State Absorption by Photonic Architectures". 

Our "Manuel Cardona" Library has acquired 17 new scientific books for all our staff! The books are about some of the main topics of our research: magnetism, neutron scattering, smart inorganic polymers, medical imaging, carbon nanomaterials or thermoelectric materials. Take a look at the list below!

The Societat Catalana de Nanociència i Nanotecnologia (SCN2) held its First Annual Congress of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology on Saturday, 16 November 2019. The event took place at Casa Elizalde in Barcelona and focused on Energy harvesting, Environment and Sustainable Development. Martí Gibert, PhD fellow at NANOPTO group won the poster contest with his work on “Near Infrared Organic Photodetectors based on Enhanced Charge Transfer State Absorption by Photonic Architectures”. Congratulations!

• Researchers from the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC) and the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) have shown that thermal conductivity can be tuned by an external applied electric field.
• If the material is mechanically deformed in a suitable way, the external applied electric field can be much lower to achieve the same thermal response.
• These advances allow envisaging a truly zero-power analogue of electronics, because phononics circuits would need no power supply.

Two of our PhD researchers, Amanda Muñoz and Pamela Machado, have participated in the CSIC Video Contest “Yo Investigo. Yo soy CSIC”, in which they have to explain their PhD Thesis in 3 minutes! You can vote by clicking "like" to the videos until 13 December 2019. 

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". 

A collaboration project between the ICMAB (Elies Molins), ISGlobal (Krijn Paaijmans), and Biogents AG (Andreas Rose, Germany), has developed electrical barriers that avoid that mosquitos that can transmit diseases such as dengue, chikunguña, zika or malaria, get inside public spaces, such as schools, hospitals or workplaces.

Martí Gibert, PhD researcher at the NANOPTO group, participated on Friday, 8 November 2019, on the YouTube Science Truck programme, in which the main topic was Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, and the invited scientific youtuber was Anna Morales (Size Matters), who is working on her PhD in Switzerland. Martí talked about Organic Solar Cells and Nanostructures! You can listen him from minute 53:24 to minute 1:02. Well done, Martí!

The new developement of the Scanning Probe Microscopy Lab to measure the piezoelectricity of the materials has been featured in this month newsletter of the R+D CSIC under the title "A microscope to measure accurately the piezoelectric properties of materials". 

Elies Molins has given lectures at the International Conference on Materials Science (ICMS), at the Center for Applied Nanotechnology (CNAP) and at the Universidad Autonoma de Chile. His conferences have been about porous materials and their applications in catalysis and medicine. 

On Friday, 6 November 2019, the ICMAB and Mettler Toledo organize a workshop for students and young researchers on Good Laboratory Practices. There will be three sessions on Spectrometry UV/Vis, Good Pipetting and Electrochemistry and pH. A Certificate of Attendance will be issued for each participant. Regiser before 14 October 2019! The session is especifically for Bachelor and Master Students and PhD fellows, although everyone is invited!

The article and patent related to the preparation of Graphene Oxide Aerogels, using supercritical carbon dioxide, is featured in R+D CSIC, in the news post "Ultralight, elastic and highly porous graphene oxide aerogels". 

The article "A Solid‐State Aqueous Electrolyte‐Gated Field‐Effect Transistor as a Low‐Voltage Operation Pressure‐Sensitive Platform" from Marta Mas-Torrent and co-workers was highlighted in Advanced Science News. The work presents a proof-of-concept of a new transduction mechanism that can be exploited to fabricate pressure-responsive organic devices.

The European Technology and Innovation Platform on Batteries, BatteRIes Europe, held its first General Assembly on 22 October 2019 in Brussels, Belgium. Following the launch of the platform in June 2019, the day was dedicated to setting up the ground of the European initiative supported by the European Commission that will shape the research ecosystem for batteries in Europe, through the election of its very first Governing Board. M. Rosa Palacín will be part of this Governing Board, in the area of "Future and Emerging Technologies". 

Directors of SOMMa Centres discussed at CNIO (Spanish National Cancer Research Center) in Madrid, the network's best practices in gender equality, to implement a change of culture that allows gender equality to be integrated into strategic science decisions. From the ICMAB, Riccardo Rurali, ICMAB Deputy Director and Coordinator of the Gender Equality Committe at the ICMAB, attended the event.

On Monday, 28 October 2019, the ICMAB staff, especially the new Master students and PhD and Postdoc fellows, are invited to the presentation of the Scientific Equipment Platforms (SEP) of the ICMAB. The 9 Scientific and Technical Services have prepared some posters to present their equipment and research techniques to the researchers to broaden up their research possibilities. We are sure that from this day, new and exciting collaborations will emerge.

On the weekend 26 and 27 October 2019, the "Parc de la Ciutadella" (UPDATE: Moll de la Fusta) in Barcelona will be full of science! The 13th edition of the "Science Festival" (Festa de la Ciència) will take place from 9 am to 6 pm! The ICMAB participates with some micro-talks, and with a stand with ElectroWoman, explaining the wonders of Molecular Electronics for different devices! Will you join us? Come with us and participate with your friends and family to the many activities prepared.

We have a new Helium Liquefier! With the new ATL 160 QuantumDesign equipment, we will be able to satisfy between 90-95 % of our Helium needs (now we were around 60 %). We use liquid Helium at the Low Temperatures and Magnetometry Service, since magnetic measurements are carried out at extremely low temperatures (5 K!). Liquid Helium is used as a refrigerant. 

The ICN2, the ICMAB-CSIC and the ALBA Synchrotron organise on 24 and 25 October 2019 a workshop devoted to innovation and technology transfer between R+D centers and companies. The event is part of the TNSI project, funded with European regional development funds (ERDF) by the Interreg-POCTEFA programme.

On Wednesday, 23 October 2019, and to celebrate the Open Access Week, which is celebrated this week all over the world, we organized a seminar on "Open Access at ICMAB: Frequently Asked Questions". The seminar was for the Institute researchers to solve some doubts about publishing in Open Access, and organized by the ICMAB "Manuel Cardona" library. Read here more about it!

Open Access en el ICMAB: Preguntas Frecuentes

The ICMAB is now a member of SECPHO, a national technological innovation cluster formed by companies, technology centres and research centres. SECPHO is focused on promoting technological innovation through the application of photonic technologies, or technologies based on light, to all types of sectors of our economy. 

The goal of the first Grenoble Barcelona Twin Conference, celebrated at the CNRS Campus in Grenoble on 23-25 October, is to put together Barcelona and Grenoble scientists working on condensed matter, quantum physics, materials science and electrical engineering. Many ICMAB researchers have participated in the meeting! 

Lluis Balcells, Igor Stanković,* Zorica Konstantinović, Aanchal Alagh, Victor Fuentes, Laura López-Mir, Judit Oró, Narcis Mestres, Carlos García, Alberto Pomar and Benjamin Martínez. Nanoscale, 2019,11, 14194-14202. 

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2019 was awarded on October 9, 2019, jointly to John B. Goodenough, M. Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino for the development of lithium-ion batteries. At the ICMAB we are very happy for this award, for several reasons: Josep Fontcuberta was a former postdoc fellow of Goodenough, in Oxford; and Goodenough was once a member of our Scientific Advisory Board! Moreover, M. Rosa Palacín, researcher in the batteries field, has met all three of them, and has continued their work, developing post lithium-ion batteries at the ICMAB! In this post, both researchers have written some words on this matter! Continue reading!

Three days to talk about communication, science and outreach, at the University of Burgos, from 9 to 11 October 2019, organized by the AECC (Asociación Española de Comunicación Científica) and the University of Burgos. Call for proposals and registration is open!

Joan Ricard Ibáñez is the new General Manager of the ICMAB since this October. We would like to welcome him and thank him for joining us in our project!

The Soft Lab, run by Amable Bernabé, has hosted from Monday, 7 October, to Wednesday, 9 October a course on "Characterization techniques for particulate materials". The course has counted with 12 participants from different CSIC centers (including ICMAB, IBM-CNM, ICM, IQAC...) and has introduced the participants to different techniques to characterize nanoparticles and other particulate matter, including the basic fundamentals, sample preparation, practical examples and results interpretation. 

On Saturday, 5 October 2019, we could see in the programme ¡Qué animal! from La2 RTVE, the researcher Anna Laromaine, from the Nanoparticles and Nanocomposites group, talking about the "supermaterial" bacterial cellulose. The programme was about animals with superpowers, so our Matheroes: the supermaterials of the future, were also featured in it! Thank you to all the ¡Qué animal! team!

This year, the Maker Faire Barcelona took place the weekend of 5-6 October in a new location: at the NAU BOSTIK, in the neighborhood of La Sagrera in Barcelona. The space was perfect for this kind of event, full of artists, inventors, creativity and sustainability. We felt really good there! From the ICMAB, Andrés Gómez and Anna May did two rounds of the workshop "Printing nanomaterials with 3Doodler" and gathered around 12-15 participants in each round. Thank you to the Maker Faire for counting on us!

Pol Sallés has been awarded with a "la Caixa" INPhINIT (MSCA COFUND) grant to come to the ICMAB to start his PhD Thesis with researcher Mariona Coll in the field of perovskites for solar cells. Congratulations, Pol! 

It's time to meet Zsolt Kelemen, our #MSCA IF Fellow of the Week! Zsolt is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Laboratory of Inorganic Materials and Catalysis group, and he is working in the framework of the Tuning COPs project. Congratulations, Zsolt!

Wiley celebrates the International Year of the Periodic Table with an interactive Periodic Table of books devoted to each one of the elements! In the case of Boron, the featured book is "Boron-Based Compounds: Potential and Emerging Applications in Medicine" edited by Evamarie Hey-Hawkins and Clara Viñas Teixidor. 

During the European Researchers' Night celebrated on Friday, 27 September 2019 in Cosmocaixa Barcelona (Nit Jove de la Recerca), the representation of the dramatised lecture "Madame Châtelet and her Instagram Followers" was held (twice!) with a great amount of people in the audience! We could expland the knowledge of great women scientists to all those who came to see the Châtelet team in action!

The European Researchers’ Night, since its firs edition in 2005, brings science, technology and researchers closer to the general public on the last Friday of September. The ICMAB participated in this year's edition with talks, workshops and a dramatised lecture at the event organized at CosmoCaixa Science Museum in Barcelona, and in the CSIC "Residència d'Investigadors". 

In the morning of Thursday, 26 September 2019, Judith Morlà, TecnioSpring researcher at the Nanomol Group, and Andrés Gómez, Senior Technician at the Scanning Probe Microscopy Lab, became "A researcher in your classroom": they went to give some science talks to two high schools, in the framework of the European Researchers' Night. 

Mariano Campoy Quiles, Alex Ponrouch and M. Rosa Palacín participated in the meeting of the Royal Society about ‘Energy Materials for a Low Carbon Future’ held in September 2018, in the fields of "Organic Thermoelectrics" and "Post -Li batteries". The opinions were published then in the Philosophical Transaction of the Royal Society in July 2019. 

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. 

Naukas Bilbao is one of the greatest event in Science Communication in Spain. This year the 9th edition of Naukas will take place in Bilbao, from 19 to 22 September 2019, at the Palacio Euskalduna, which can host an audience of more than 2,000 people! This year, the Nanomol Group researcher Dolores Bueno, will give a talk about the project in which she is participating, Smart4Fabry. The talk is entitled "Share your rare!" and will be on Friday, 20 September, at 11:10 am. Good luck, Dolores!

• The second call of this program will allow 12 predoctoral researchers to start their PhD at the ICMAB-CSIC, the ICN2, the IMB-CNM-CSIC, the IREC and the ALBA Synchrotron
• In total the DOC-FAM program will enable 22 early stage researchers to conduct their PhD in the field of "Advanced Functional Materials" in these outstanding research institutions
• The DOC-FAM program, coordinated by the ICMAB, is the first MSCA COFUND coordinated by a CSIC center

In the afternoon of Monday, 9 September 2019, a meeting was held between the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, the research centres and units distinguished with the certificate of excellence Severo Ochoa and María de Maeztu, and representatives of 15 autonomous communities. The purpose of the meeting at the Ministry was to highlight the impact of the Severo Ochoa - María de Maeztu programme, and to expose its benefits for the consolidation of excellence research of the different autonomous communities.

The Plant Nanohealing Technology, jointly developed by CRAG and ICMAB-CSIC researchers, is currently being tested by the company Forestal Catalana.

Teresa Puig was interviewed in the digital radio programme "Hablando con Científicos" by Ángel Rodríguez Lozano, to talk about superconducting materials and her recent ERC Proof of Concept Grant on the scale-up production of high-temperature superconducting tapes.

• The future circular collider (FCC), with a 100 km circumference ring, will extend the research currently being conducted at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in the search for new physics.
• High-temperature superconductors, such as YBCO, are being studied to be used as coating for the FCC ring instead of copper. Researchers have found that these materials outperform copper by a factor of 40, which would greatly enhance the FCC efficiency and provide big energy savings.
• The Superconducting Materials and Large Scale Nanostructures (SUMAN) group at the ICMAB-CSIC participates in this study as part of a consortium with the ALBA Synchrotron, the IFAE and the UPC.

Researchers of the Nanomol group of the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC), together with the company Nanomol Technologies S.L. have begun a consultation process with the Spanish Association of Medicines and Health Products (AEMPS) to try and enter a new treatment in a clinical studies stage, to fight against venous ulcers in lower extremities. The study is carried out within the framework of the RIS3CAT NANONAFRES project.

Elies Molins participated in the creation of the exhibition "Energía: origen y final del todo", which was exhibited at Laboratorium Museum in Bergara (Basque Country) from January to May 2019. The curators and designers were Carlota Oliver, Javier Tejada (Universitat de Barcelona) and Elies Molins (ICMAB-CSIC). 

• Perovskites promise to be the next star material for solar cells, but the reason of their high efficiency is still unknown.
• Researchers at the Institute of Materials Science in Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC) and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie (Germany) have demonstrated with a new microscopy technique that perovskites are not ferroelectric, as was thought.
• The new technique, patented by CSIC in 2017, is the direct piezoelectric force microscopy (DPFM) which, for the first time, is used in lead halide perovskite solar cells.

The studies "Synchrotron tts-µXRD identification of secondary phases in ancient ceramics" published in Heritage Science, and "Breaking Preconceptions: Thin Section Petrography For Ceramic Glaze Microstructures" published in Minerals are now featured in UABDivulga. These two articles, in which researchers from the UAB and the ICMAB have collaborated, refute the common perception of thin-sections as an old-fashioned laboratory preparation and show how this sample format conceived in the 19th century is still in force and can be adapted to the research and the new tools of the 21st century, such as the synchrotron facilities.

Mariano Campoy-Quiles is an invited speaker at this ICN2 Severo Ochoa Workshop on energy storage and harvesting entitled "Energy Mining in the 21st century". The event will take place at the CCCB-Mirador on Friday, 12 July 2019. To attend the event, please contact the organizers.

On Thursday, 11 July, we receive the visit of South Korean researchers working on Flexible Electronics. We have organized a small workshop open to all our staff and researchers of the surrounding centers, in which they will explain their research, and then some of our ICMABers researchers, will explain our research on this topic. You are all invited!

M. Rosa Palacín was on Thursday, 11 July 2019, in Madrid at the conference organized by EL PAÍS, CincoDías and Cadena SER about the future of electric cars "Los retos del coche eléctrico". The event counted with the presence of Teresa Ribera (Ecologic Transition Minister), Reyes Maroto (Industry, Commerce and Turism Minister), José Bogas (Endesa) and Luis Antonio Ruiz (Jaguar Land Rover), and other experts in engineering and materials science. 

Clara Viñas and Francesc Teixidor, from the Inorganic Materials and Catalysis Book, have written Chapter 5 of Volume 1 of the "Handbook of Boron Science". The chapter is entitled: "Halogenated Icosahedral Carboranes: A Platform for Remarkable Applications". The handbook counts with 4 volumes, the first one being "Boron in Organometallic Chemistry". The handbook is edited by Narayan S Hosmane (Northern Illinois University, USA) andRobert Eagling.

"SENSORAÏM: Autonomous Distributed Sensor Networks for a Smart Viticulture" is the new project led by Mariano Campoy-Quiles from the NANOPTO group at the ICMAB funded by FEDER (Fons Europeu de Desenvolupament Regional), Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca (AGAUR) and Secretaria d’Universitats i Recerca del Departament d'Empresa i Coneixement de la Generalitat de Catalunya, within the modality "PRODUCTE" grants (2018 PROD 00191), aimed at obtaining prototypes of the research results generated by research groups in Catalunya. These projects are excellent to reinforce the technology transfer of the Catalan research centers. 

The recent UHMob project (Ultra-high Charge Carrier Mobility Elucidate Transport Mechanisms in Molecular Semiconductors) is a new MSCA-ITN-ETN project, in which the group of Marta Mas-Torrent participates! Visit their website to discover 15 open positions for Early Stage Researchers (ESR) in the field of Organic Electronics! The doctoral project offered at the ICMAB is ESR12 "Solution-processing of organic semiconductors for achieving high mobility and reproducibility". The deadline for application is August 15, 2019.

Núria Crivillers was in Mollina (Málaga) from 17 to 20 June 2019 to participate as member of the jury on the "Certamen Jóvenes Investigadores" in which young researchers presented their research projects. Núria Crivillers was in charge of evaluating the projects in the field of physics, chemistry and mathematics. The CSIC sponsors and offers various stays at their researh institutes as part of the awards. 

Iif you are in the science field, you probably receive every week plenty of spam emails asking you to write an article for this or that journal, or to go to this or that conference. Usually, these emails are easy to spot, and they are quickly thrown on the trash folder. However, is there a way to properly detect them? And to fight them? Read this article by Mariano Campoy-Quiles (and with an original illustration by Alejandro Santos) to know how.

• The new Nature Index 2019 is out, and the data confirm the expected: ICMAB is the first CSIC center in research outputs per capita in the ranking, and the second in terms of research outputs.
• CSIC is the first research institute in Spain, and is ranked the 54th research institution worldwide, and the 4th government institution, in terms of research outputs. 

• Material engineering at the nanoscale can be successfully employed in the design of a new type of materials: this is the case of superlattices formed by layers the same material with different crystal structure.
• The study, published in Nano Letters, paves the way for efficient thermoelectric and nanoelectronic devices, which require high quality materials without defects within their structure and interfaces.

The 9^th European Conference on Boron Chemistry (EuroBoron9) will take place in Barcelona in 2022, and will be organized by ICMAB researchers, Rosario Núñez and Jose Giner. This year, on 24-28 June 2019, the researchers from the Inorganic Materials and Catalysis Lab (LMI) participated in EuroBoron8 in Montpellier, presenting many posters and oral communications. 

Xavier Obradors participated on June 19, 2019, on a roundtable about the "Energy of the future" in the framework of the European Week of Sustainable Energy in Vil·la Urània (Barcelona). Obradors gave an introductory talk on "Nanotechnology and Energy Transition" and then participated in the discussion with the other experts in the field from different research centers and organisations. 

On June 18, 2019, the winners of the ESCOLAB contest "Tenim una idea" were revealed. In the category "Idees to improve the health and nurition of the citizens" an idea to "develop an injectable chemical substance based on nanoparticles to regenerate bones in a quick and efficient way" was the winner. The idea came from Aina Vilar and Carlota Garcia, from the "Escola Pia de Granollers" who visited us last 10 May 2019, to learn about "The materials of the future for nanomedicine" with researcher Nora Ventosa. Congrats!

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! 

Judit Tomsen, PhD fellow at the Nanomol group, was awarded with the best oral presentation at the European Students Colloid Conference (ESC-2019), that took place in Varna (Bulgaria) on 18-22 June 2019.

Anna Morales, alias SizeMatters in YouTube, is a Researcher in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology and a YouTuber. She owns the channel "SizeMatters", which is a nanoscience and nanotechnology channel in Spanish. In her last video, she explains the concepts of nanotechnology in some Marvel superheroes, and also in our Matheroes: ElectroWoman, Magnon, Bionanocapsule and Fotoenergy! 

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!

The book "Oxide Spintronics" (Pan Stanford Publishing) has recently been published. Ignasi Fina and Gervasi Herranz, reserachers at the MULFOX group (Laboratory of Multifunctional Thin Films and Complex Structures) have co-authored the book, collaborating in some chapters about spintronic in multiferroics, and orbital symmetry and electronic properties of 2D electron systems.

Every spring, the ICMAB celebrates its Anniversary. This year, we celebrated it on Friday, 14 June 2019. A morning full of different activites was organised by our staff: a foot orienteering race organised by Ferran Macià, Poker, chess, and Party & Co. tournements, a swing class by Swing UAB, a sketching workshop by Alejandro Santos, a cakes and a world cooking contest, and the traditional tennis table tournement. See some of the photos in this post!

Published in Physical Review X a study which, by combining the “long-wave method,” a mainstay of condensed-matter theory since the 50s, with modern electronic-structure techniques, researchers obtain highly accurate predictions of physical responses of crystals to nonhomogenous external perturbations. A great work by Miquel Royo and Massimiliano Stengel! 

On Wednesday, 12 June 2019, the Quantum exhibition at CCCB received the visit of three scientists working in Quantum research at the ALBA Synchrotron: Gervasi Herranz, from the ICMAB, Salvador Ferrer, from ALBA, and Jordi Fraxedas, from the ICN2. The three researchers talked to an audience of about 40 people about their quantum experiments at the ALBA synchrotron. 

We are glad to announce that the 10^th International Symposium on Nitrides (ISNT2019) will be held in Barcelona, Spain on June 9-14, 2019. Early registration and Abstract Submission starts on September 15, 2018 (Deadline: 24 January 2019). 

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. 

On 6-7 June 2019, the PhD meeting of the PhD fellows of the Barcelona Nanocluster in Bellaterra (JPhD2019) was held at the ICMAB-CSIC and at the ICN2 facilities. The meeting was organized by PhD fellows from the ICMAB-CSIC, ICN2, ALBA Synchrotron, UAB and IMB-CNM-CSIC, working in a nanoscience and nanotechnology related topic. 

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!

On June 4 the final event of Nanoinventum will take place at the Faculties of Chemistry and Biology of the University of Barcelona. Primary school students and their teachers from 5 different schools, involving more than 200 students, will present the work in nanorobots that they have carried out this year. They will also interview Anna Roig (ICMAB) and Mercè Segarra (UB) to know more about the life of a scientist. 

Mariona Coll and Josep Fontcuberta from the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC), Fabio Miletto Granozio from the CNR-SPIN (Complesso Universitario di Monte Sant’Angelo, Napoli, Italy) and Nini Pryds from the Department of Energy Storage and Conversion, Technical University of Denmark, have edited the compendium "Towards Oxide Electronics: a Roadmap" published recently in Applied Surface Science. The article counts with 28 contributions from 56 authors of 42 academic institutions and industries from Europe, USA and Japan. The compendium has 93 pages and includes 913 references!

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. 

The 16th edition of the NanoSpain Conference, annual appointment for experts in nanoscience and nanotechnologies, takes place at the Parc Científic of Barcelona on May 28-31, 2019. Many ICMABers are attending the conference, including Anna Laromaine as Invited Speaker, and Jaume Veciana as Advisory Board. 

On Monday, 27 May 2019, Gerard Tobias was in charge of giving the talk within the "Dilluns de Ciència" conference cycle in commemoration of the 150 years of the Periodic Table of the Elements, at the Residència d'Investigadors of the CSIC. Gerard's talk was entitled "El carboni: de l’origen de la vida a la nanociència", and is about carbon nanomaterials and their applications. Luckily the conference was filmed and now you can watch it online! 

Coinciding with the 100th anniversary of IUPAC in 2019, the XXXVII edition of the Biennial of theSpanish Royal Society of Chemistry will be held on May 26-30, 2019 in Donostia-San Sebastian. ICMABers from the Inorganic Materials and Catalysis Lab, from the FunNanoSurf group and from the NANOMOL group attend the meeting!

This Sunday, 26 May 2019, the 8th International Conference on Spectroscopic Ellipsometry (ICSE8) starts at the World Trade Center, and will last until 31 May 2019. Six days devoted to the instrumentation, science and applications of spectroscopic ellipsometry and related techniques, and with a high participation of ICMAB researchers. The Conference Chair is M. Isabel Alonso, from the ICMAB-CSIC.

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. 

During three days, between 20-22 May, the Pint of Science Festival, which brings science to bars and pubs, will take place in many cities of Spain. Sant Cugat del Vallès will, for the first time, host this festival! The "Cal Temerari" bar will be full of science for three days!

Have you ever thought if the carbon-carbon (C-C) bond distance is always the same, or it can change? And if it changes, which is the maximum distance of this kind of bond? An article published in "Chemical & Engineering News!" addressed this topic. After this article was first published, Clara Viñas contacted C&EN to let them know that even longer carbon-carbon bonds exist than the ones they mentioned: In 2002, a team including Clara Viñas described a 2.022 Å long carbon-carbon bond in an inorganic cluster (Inorg. Chem. 2002, DOI: 10.1021/ic011285z). 

Clara Viñas, Rosario Núñez and Francesc Teixidor, from the Inorganic Materials and Catalysis Laboratory at ICMAB, and Isabel Romero, from the Universitat de Girona, co-authored the Wiley-VCH book "Smart Inorganic Polymers: Synthesis, Properties, and Emerging Applications in Materials and Life Sciences", in particular, the chapter "Highlighting the Binding Behavior of Icosahedral Boron Clusters Incorporated into Polymers: Synthons, Polymers Preparation, and Relevant Properties".

On 14 May 2019 we received the visit of Klaus Attenkofer, new Scientific Director of ALBA Synchrotron at the Experiments Division since 4 March 2019. Klaus Attenkofer was received by our Director, Xavier Obradors, by our Vicedirector, M. Rosa Palacín, and by the Head of the Scientific Equipment Platforms, Carlos Frontera.

The project "Synthetic nanoparticles as an innovative treatment in sepsis (SPRINT-4-SEPSIS)" will be funded by the Ramón Areces Foundation within the framework of the XIX National Contest of Life and Material Sciences Research Grants. Anna Roig will be part of the project. 

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?

The event, held on 8-9 May, belongs to the series of workshops offering an overview of the different research areas covered by the ICMAB Severo Ochoa Strategic Plan. It was focused on molecular and organic electronics, and organised by a local organising committee formed by researchers of the research lines RL1 (Sustainable energy conversion and storage systems) and RL4 (Molecular electronics). 

Amanda Muñoz, Master student and researcher in the N&N group at ICMAB is one of the winners of the #100QSD microstories contest organized by @CSICDivulga and @CatarataLibros on Twitter! Congratulations! We have asked her about her experience in this Twitter contest, and this is what she says: 

Register before it's too late! The dramatised reading "Madame Châtelet and her Instagram followers", which recently received a Grant from FGCSIC, will open the Conference Cycle organized by Alumni UB "Dones de ciència retrobades en la història". The dramatised reading will take place on Monday, 29 April at 6 pm at the "Sala Gabriel Oliver" (Facultat de Filologia, Edifici Històric UB). Entrace is free but registration is needed. 

Within the framework of the IV Festival of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology 10alamenos9, the Institutional Delegation of the CSIC in Madrid organizes a new edition of the National Meeting of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Outreach Projects (Encuentro Nacional de Nanodivulgadores), on Friday, 26 April 2019, at the IQFR (Madrid). 

If you follow the Twitter of the RSEQ (@RSEQUIMICA) you will find on their timeline a bunch of articles devoted to the Peridic Table Elements. The RSEQ is preparing a special issue of the journal "Anales de Química", that will come out on May 5, 2019, to celebrate the International Year of the Periodic Table (IYPT) 2019. The article about Boron is written by Clara Viñas, researcher at ICMAB, who has been working for a long time with this element!

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.

CARBAT, the FET-Open European project on Calcium Rechargeable Battery Technology, coordinated by M. Rosa Palacín at ICMAB, has a new video that explains their project! If you want to know more, check it out here!

A new edition of the photo and video contest of the ICMAB, FOTICMAB 2019, is now open, until 26 May 2019 (included). All the ICMAB staff can participate in this contest, which is already a tradition of our Institute!

ICMAB researchers have collaborated in a study led by ICIQ researchers that look in detail at the interfaces in perovskite solar cells to understand the differences observed in their performance.

On Wednesday 10 April 2019, the ICMAB will be at the XIV Business Forum "Fira d'Empreses" organized by the Faculty of Physics and the Faculty of Chemistry, with the participation of three more faculties, Mathematics and Computer Science, Earth Sciences and Biology. If you are a student or a researcher and would like to do an internship with us or work with us, come and visit us and we will inform you, from 10 am from 5 pm. 

Within the MOTHER project (Molecule-based materials and supramolecular organizations for therapy, diagnosis and tissue engineering), the NANOMOL group from ICMAB collaborates with the Vall d'Hebron Institute of Research (VHIR), on the developement of a new nanomedicine for the treatment of high risk neuroblastoma, one of the most typical childhood cancers. Now, researchers from VHIR have identified new microRNAs that reduce the progression of this type of cancer.

Ferran Macià, researcher at ICMAB in the MULFOX group has been selected to participate in the Spanish edition of the international science outreach programme “I’m a scientist, get me out of here!”. The 2019 edition of “Somos científicos, ¡Sácanos de aquí!” takes place from 1-12 April 2019. During this time, Ferran will chat in a multidisciplinary group of scientists – the CSIC zone – that includes researchers from other CSIC centres.

We invite you to the II Workshop on Spectroscopy Techniques: Generalities and Applications, which will be held at ICMAB, Barcelona, on April 1, 2019. If you are working in this field, or are interested in spectroscopy techniques, such as Raman, EPR or NMR, you cannot miss it! We encourage PhD and Master students to attend! Registration is free and deadline is March 15, 2019. 

One of our workshops for primary school students called "Become a Materials Detective" is the star of the TV children's show "Catacrak" from Barcelona Televisió (betevé), showcasted on Sunday 31 March 2019! Students from the school "Escola Mestre Morera" from Barcelona came to ICMAB to participate in the activity, in which they are introduced to the nanoworld and to the daily life of minerals. Do you want to see the video?

The SusPlast platform was officially launched on March 2019. The "Interdisciplinary Platform for Sustainable Plastics towards a Circular Economy" platform counts with the participation of 15 research groups from CSIC centers. From the ICMAB, from the Supercritical Fluids and Functional Materials group (SFFM) participates in the platform.

On 29 March 2019, the Presidency of the CSIC signed the institutional mandate of Open Access. It is a strong impulse for the open access of different types of CSIC research results, including peer-reviewed publications and associated research data, through the DIGITAL.CSIC repository.

On Friday, 29 March 2019, the "Matheroes: Supermaterials, the materials of the future" were presented for a school class of students aged 11-12 (6è Primària) from Sabadell in the Ponent Library in Sabadell (Biblioteca de Ponent). Núria Crivillers, Juan-Luís García-Pomar and Anna May Masnou, presented some of the supermaterials and their properties and applications.

The ICMAB research is present at the 10th International Postgraduate and Continuous Training Forum in Madrid in the CSIC stand (5E01). The forum opens its doors on 28-30 March from 10 am to 8 pm. If you are a student and/or a professional in the education field, here you will find endless options to expand your academic education: masters, doctorates, postgraduate studies, or language schools, in business schools, educational centers, universities, or research centers.

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.

Cristiano Matricardi, PhD fellow at the NANOPTO group (Nanostructured Materials for Optoelectronics and Energy Harvesting) is one of the recipients of the 16h edition of the science photography contest "FOTCIENCIA" awards. From a total of 697 photographies, 7 photos have been chosen by the jury as the winners, and "Trampa de luz" is one of them. Congratulations! 

On Thursday 21 March, the Superconducting Materials group was at the "Espai Ciència" of the "Saló de l'Ensenyament" at the CSIC-Catalunya stand, which included different kinds of activities from different Catalan CSIC research centers. The Superconducting team showed the visitors the science behing the levitating train, liquid nitrogen and the properties of nanoparticles. 

On Monday, 18 March, the meeting "Science and Research in the Agenda 2030" (Ciencia e Investigación en la Agenda 2030) took place in La Moncloa (Madrid), with the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, Pedro Duque, and the High Comissioner for the Agenda 2030, Cristina Gallach. The CSIC President, Rosa Menéndez, participated in the event, and Mariano Campoy-Quiles, from ICMAB-CSIC, attented the event, together with 150 representatives of the science, research and innovation field in Spain. 

On Friday, 15 March 2019, the secondary school INS Mercè Rodoreda (Hospitalet de Llobregat) celebrated their "V Scientific Day" (V Jornada Científica) with scientific activities for their students, from 1st ESO to 2nd BTX. José Vidal-Gancedo, Reseracher at ICMAB, was one of the invited speakers. He had the big challenge of talking about "Organic radicals for biomedical applications" to 3rd and 4th ESO students. 

Many of the people (researchers, students, technicians, administrative staff) that have worked at ICMAB since its foundation in 1986, are now developing their career and continuing their training in leading academic institutions and industries all over the world. Are you one of them? Would you like to keep in touch with your former colleagues? Then continue reading...

On Thursday, 14 March 2019, the ICMAB hosts the workshop on Gender Equality in Research Centers entitled "¿Y a mí, qué me aporta la igualdad?". The workshop is aimed for all the ICMAB staff (scientific, technical, administration, students...) and will take place from 8:45 am to 2 pm. Don't miss this opportunity to learn and interact with your colleagues about this topic that affects all of us!  

The online website "Motor Pasion" about the cars and motor word, opens their site today with a news post about the electric vehicle and the future batteries. M. Rosa Palacín, researcher at ICMAB, was consulted by the author of the article, Victoria Fuentes, and appers in the article giving her point of view and state of the art. Read it to know more about it! 

On 12 March 2019, and in the framework of the Women's International Day, 8 March, the Châtelet team went to Sant Cugat to perform the dramatised reading that visibilizes the women scientists along history "Madame Châtelet and her Instagram followers". The students, of 11-12 years old, were really attentive and asked many questions after the lecture. Thank you for inviting us!

On 7-8 March 2019, the VI Strategic Immersion of the Advanced Materials Cluster (Cluster MAV), in collaboration with ACCIÓ, took place in Sitges. Our Technology Transfer Officer, Alfonso del Rey, attented the event, which main aim was to know the main trends and world challenges in the advanced materials field. 

Terrassa held on 6-7 March 2019 the first edition of the "Women, Science and Technology" (WSciTech19) Conference (Congrés de Dones, Ciència i Tecnologia) and the "Châtelet team" at ICMAB presented their dramatised lecture "Madame Châtelet and her Instagram followers" as a tool to visibilize the wise women in the history of science. Susagna Ricart and Anna May, in representation of the team, presented a Poster, and an Oral Communication, which resulted in a fantastic colloquium.

Last week, during the International Battery Association (IBA) 2019 meeting in San Diego, Alexandre Ponrouch, researcher at ICMAB, received the IBA 2019 Early Career Award. The International Battery Association (IBA) awards significant contributions to battery research and technology development that have impacted the advancement of energy storage systems, and for lifelong service to the IBA. The awards were recognized at the banquet of the IBA meeting on Thursday, March 7, 2019. Congratulations to all the winners of IBA2019! 

The dramatised reading "Madame Châtelet and her Instagram followers", prepared by a group of women of ICMAB-CSIC, was awarded with a FGCSIC "Cuenta la Ciencia" grant in its second call, this year 2019. The project is entitled "El salón de las mujeres sabias" and aims to stimulate and promote the interst in scientific careers by providing examples of women scientists from different periods of our history.

In last RECERCAT newsletter, our vice-director and researcher, M. Rosa Palacín, was interviewed. She talked about her research in batteries, about the arrival of the electric vehicle, about gender equality in reserach and about materials science in general. Read the interview here!

A technology developed by a team led by Dr. Núria Crivillers, researcher at the Nanomol Group at ICMAB, has been selected as a high potential innovation by the European Union (EU).

A new laser-based technique developed by the Institute of Materials Science (ICMAB-CSIC) uses urea, a common substance in the chemical industry and a low-cost alternative to noble metal co-catalysts, to enable a more efficient, one-step production of hybrid graphene-based organic-inorganic composite layers for environmental remediation; photodegradation of antibiotic contaminants from wastewater. The composition and chemical bonds of the urea-enriched thin layers were studied in detail using synchrotron light at the ALBA Synchrotron.

Carlos Frontera, researcher at ICMAB and member of the Gender Equality Committee of the ICMAB, attended on February 14-15, 2019, the European project LIBRA workshop to share experiences on “How to design, implement and follow-up a Gender Equality Plan”.

Arántzazu González, researcher from the ICMAB-CSIC, went on 11 February to a Primary School (Can Maiol) to talk to the students and visibilize women scientists, within the initative "Nuestras científicas: Jornada de investigadoras actuales y futuras" of the CSIC-Catalunya. The initiative appeared on the TVE1 news programme "L'informatiu" at 2 pm on 11 February 2019. Look at it here, from minute 16:04! 

On Monday, 11 February 2019, we will celebrate the International Day of Women and Girls in Science at ICMAB! We have a full morning prepared with a seminar to discover who was and what did Lise Meitner do, followed by a presentation of some of the participants of the STEM-AMB-TU initiative from AMIT-CAT to encourage scientific vocations to young girls. Do you want to share this day with us?

From 7 to 11 February, Barcelona will be the City of Science. The Biennal Ciència i Ciutat will fill the city with activities related with science: talks, debates, roundables, exhibitions, etc. The ICMAB will also participate by collaborating in two roundtables about Chemistry and Health, and Chemistry and Bateries (8 Feb, Cosmocaixa). You cannot miss it! Take a look at the extense programme, there is something for you, for sure!

The students of physics and chemistry of 4th ESO of the highschool "La Tordera" in Santa Maria de Palautordera received the visit on 6 February 2019 of Anna Laromaine, researcher at ICMAB. Anna visited the highschool in the framework of the #11F2019, the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, in which many researchers gave talks in primary and secondary schools during that week. 

2019 will be the 150th anniversary since Dmitry Mendeleev discovered the Periodic System and has been proclaimed the "International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements" (IYPT2019) (AITP in Catalan).

Xavier Obradors, ICMAB Director, gave a talk to the CMES group (Col·lectiu per a un Nou Model Energètic i Social Sostenible) on February 4, 2019. You can watch here the entire conference, which is on Youtube:

On Monday, 4 February 2019, the Paranimf of the Universitat de Barcelona hosted the 7th edition of the Interdisciplinary Meeting of Predoctoral Researchers (JIPI, Jornada d'Investigadors Predoctorals Interdisciplinària), organized by PhD fellows and supported by many entities and organizations, including the ICMAB-CSIC. M. Rosa Palacin was invited in the closing session of the event, in which some of our ICMAB PhD researchrers participated. 

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. 

The E-MAGIC (European Magnesium Interactive Battery Community) research project is a European H2020 FET-PROACTIVE recently funded with 6.5 million euros. Its aim is to develop new magnesium-based batteries, more powerful, cheaper and safer than lithium-ion ones. The project could pave the way for the establishment of a competitive battery cell production landscape in Europe.

• The device is composed of cellulose produced in the laboratory by bacteria, with small amounts of carbon nanotubes, resulting very sustainable
• The device could be used to generate electricity in wearables, in medical and sports applications, and as intelligent thermal insulator

Miquel Torras, PhD fellow at the Nanoparticles and Nanocomposites (NN) group, received on 29 January 2019 the Extraordinary Award for his Master in Applied Materials Chemistry at the University of Barcelona (UB) (2016-2017).

On Tuesday, 29 January 2019, the Welcome Day of the Doctoral Training Programme in Functional Advanced Materials (DOC-FAM) First Call Fellows took place at the ICMAB. The DOC-FAM is a H2020-MSCA-COFUND project coordinated by ICMAB-CSIC in collaboration with four partner research institutions from the area: IMB-CNM, IREC, ALBA Synchrotron and ICN2. In this first call, 10 PhD Fellows from all around the world have started their research training programme within these institutions. Meet them here! 

Anna Laromaine, researcher at the N&N group at ICMAB, was interviewed by People First, a platform where people from different institutions and enterprises are highlighted. Anna, included in the Top 100 Women more influent in Spain, and awarded in 2016 with the L'Oréal-Unesco For Women in Science Research Award, describes her work as a researcher in nanomedicine, talks about the future of nanotechnology and women in science, about her role models in life, and about being a researcher, a university teacher and an entrepreneur at the same time. 

The next conference cycle "Dilluns de Ciència" is about crystals and life. Two of the five conferences of the cycle will be given by two ICMAB researchers, Dra. Núria Aliaga (ICREA Reserach Professor) and Dr. Gerard Tobias (Tenured Scientist at ICMAB). All the talks will be at the "Residència d'Investigadors" at 6:30 pm, and will take place always on a Monday. The first talk is on January, 21, and the last one will be on April, 29, 2019. 

The CMES is the "Col·lectiu per a un Nou Model Energètic i Social Sostenible". Funded in 2012, the group is formed by professionals, mainly from the engineering field, worried about the current energy model based on fossil fuels and uranium, which "will lead us to an environmental, economic and social crisis without precedents". The CMES group came to visit the ICMAB and listen to some of our researchers working on renewable energies, superconducting materials and batteries. Now, Xavier Obradors, ICMAB Director, will give a talk on "Nanotechnology and energy transition" on February 4, 2019.