Community-Building

The Manuel Cardona lecture series offers the ICN2 community and beyond the opportunity to interact with some of the most prominent researchers in nano-related fields. They stand as a tribute to Prof. Manuel Cardona, a key figure in our institutional history. In 2021 we hosted one new Manuel Cardona Lecture.

The ICN2 had the honour of hosting a Manuel Cardona Lecture by Prof. Yuri Gogotsi, a Distinguished University Professor and Charles T. and Ruth M. Bach Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Drexel University. This talk was held online on April 22, 2021.

His research focuses on the fundamental aspects of synthesis, characterization, and application of carbon nanomaterials (graphene, nanotubes, nanodiamond and nanoporous carbons) and 2D transition metal carbides and nitrides (MXenes) for energy, water and biomedical applications. In this field he has won several awards, including the ACS Award in the Chemistry of Materials, Gamow Prize, European Carbon Association Award, and S. Somiya Award from IUMRS.

The ICN2 hosts regular scientific lectures by international researchers outlining their latest results in topics related to those studied at the ICN2. The ICN2 Seminars serve as a discussion forum and also as a tool to establish collaboration channels with well established and emerging national and international researchers. On 2021 21 ICN2 Seminars were held with leading national and international researchers.

In 2021 most of the ICN2 seminars started to be held under the umbrella of a new brand: NanoSeminars. They are classified in three thematic series: Nano in Medicine & Health; Nano in Physics; and, Nano in Chemistry and Materials. The series about Medicine & Health is a joint initiative between the Nanomedicine Lab at the University of Manchester and the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2). The events organisations involves different scientific committees, as well as the efforts from the Communication and Strategy teams.

Through the NanoSeminars the ICN2 intends to facilitate active participation and lively discussions on topics which are of common interest to the lectures, the attendees and the different institutions involved. In each event the main lecture by the guest scientist will be preceded by a short presentation related to the topic given by a junior researcher. This combination will give younger scientists the opportunity to gain visibility and will also contribute to articulate the discussion on the topic addressed in the lecture.

Monday 8 March was the International Women’s Day. To celebrate it, the ICN2 hosted a round table amongst 5 staff women of our community: Dr Neus Bastús, Senior Researcher at the Inorganic Nanoparticle Group, Dr Elena del Corro, Senior Postdoctoral Researcher at the Advanced Electronic Materials and Devices Group, Dr Sonia Ruiz, Senior Researcher at the Nanostructured Materials for Photovoltaic Energy Group, Nuria Benítez, from the Strategy Development Area, and Sofia Souirji, from the Health and Safety Area. The discussion was moderated by Dr Justin Ryan, Senior Postdoctoral Researcher at the Advanced Electronic Materials and Devices Group.

They debated around questions such as how teleworking affected their daily lives, and lessons and opportunities to be learned from this situation. All the participants shared their personal experiences and analysed the implications and consequences of teleworking in the current health crisis.

The event also included the awarding of the 2020 ICN2 Woman Talent Programme prizes, assigned to female researchers for the best original paper published, the best review paper published and the best PhD thesis. The winners of this year’s edition are Olalla Calvo, Doctoral Student, Dr Maria Soler, Postdoctoral Researcher, and Dr Enelia Cristina Peláez, respectively. All three belong to the NanoBiosensors and Bioanalytical Applications Group.

The virtual event was a success, being followed by over one third of the ICN2 Community. The discussion took place in the ICN2 Seminar Room applying all needed social distancing measures. Broadcasted in streaming and recorded, this round table testify once again the strong commitment of the ICN2 and its researchers to gender equality in any working environment.

LeaderSHE is a new line of webinars led by the ICN2 Equal Opportunities Committee inviting women who succeeded in reaching leadership positions in different professional fields to share a personal view on leadership and its challenges. The speakers are women with very diverse backgrounds who really lead the way.

The anticipated LeaderSHE line of webinars started on April 2021 with a talk by Prof. María Blasco, Director of the CNIO and President of the SOMMa Alliance. Talks by Carme Ruscalleda, chef, and Dr Mònia Terribas, journalist, followen on May and June.

This is an activity launched in 2020 by the Human Resources Department as part of the ICN2 Community activities. The objective of this initiative is to present the members of the administration departments and their roles. These online sessions go beyond the professional role of participants, who are invited to share some personal facts regarding their hobbies and personal life. The presentations continued over 2021 include all administration departments in regular sessions with the objective to bring them closer to all the ICN2 Community.

The ICN2 Open Knowledge Programme started in 2014 as a means for sharing knowledge inside the ICN2 community. Each group or unit of the institute interested in participating proposes a set of seminars to address a broad topic from different angles. These talks are coordinated by the Human Resources Department, as they are part of the ICN2 Training Plan, and are recorded so that they can be viewed at any time.

Since the beginning of the programme, 10 open knowledge modules have been created, dealing with the use of photons to study condensed matter, the preparation of micro and nanostructures, the fundamentals of electronic excitations and spin dynamics in Dirac matter, nanomaterials-based biosensing systems in diagnostics, electron microscopy, nanofabrication processes and tools, a tutorial on TBtrans and TranSiesta and the implementation of spin-orbit coupling in SIESTA.

In 2021 two new entries were added to the list of live events and uploaded to this online and uploaded to the knowledge database available on the ICN2 website. In the edition devoted to the ICN2 Research Support Facilities, Dr Jessica Padilla and Dr Manuela Dietrich presented the ICN2 X-Ray Diffraction Facility and the ICN2 Biolab, respectively. On the second entry of the series, Dr Pablo Pomposiello, Leader of the Business and Innovation Department, and Jordi Reverter, Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer Officer in the same group, explained the processes of protecting the intellectual property and finding business opportunities to translate research outcomes to the industry.

The JPhD scientific meeting of the Barcelona Nanocluster-Bellaterra (BNC-b) –which includes ICMAB, ICN2, IMB-CNM and UAB— was launched in 2011 and over the last 10 years has emerged as an outstanding platform for networking and scientific communication.

The 6th edition of this event was held on November 25-26 at the UAB Campus and aimed to exchange knowledge about different scientific fields, share research works and communicate among the PhD students of the BNC- b in an academic and scientific environment. The meeting involved the whole UAB research community and was also open to other institutes and universities. This 2-day hybrid event was packed with oral presentations, a poster session, workshops and interesting scientific plenary talks given by established researchers in their own fields.

The 2021 BIST Conference, the fifth annual conference organised by the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST), took place on 3 November at La Pedrera Auditorium in Barcelona. Titled “Quantum Technologies: Present and Future”, this year's edition focused on discussing the state of the art and current research on quantum technologies, both internationally and locally, and presenting their many applications. The event also offered four satellite sessions on different topics such as communication, leadership, wellbeing and education.

The Conference main event included keynote talks and round-tables, and was opened up by Prof. Ignacio Cirac, Director and Scientific Member of the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics. Two panel discussions about what the advances made in Catalonia, both in research and in industry, followed. ICREA Prof. Jordi Arbiol, leader of the Advanced Electron Nanoscopy Group, and Dr Sara Martí Sanchez, postdoctoral researcher in Prof. Arbiol’s group, participated in this discussion, covering the part related to the “infrastructures” for quantum research in Catalonia. They focused their presentation on the METCAM-FIB project (ERDF funds), aiming at creating a platform for microscopy at the ALBA Synchrotron.

A Catalan member of the European Parliament, Jordi Solé, visited the ICN2 in February 2021 together with his assistant Miquel Carrillo. This member of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance presented some policies in which he is involved, such as the European Research Area or the ITRE Commission, but also to learned about the impact of European funds in our research. Lluis Rovira, Director of the CERCA Institution, also joined the visit to offer a global look about the Catalan research system.

The meeting was hosted by Prof. Jose A. Garrido, vice-Director of the ICN2 and Group Leader of the Advanced Electronic Materials and Devices Group, Dr Margarita Navia, Head of the ICN2 Strategy Development Area, and Àlex Argemí, Head of the ICN2 Marketing and Communication Department. It started with a lab-tour through the ICN2 facilities and finished with a lively debate at the ICN2 Seminar Room. The visit included a brief encounter with ICREA Prof. ICREA and Dr Belén Ballesteros; ICREA Prof. Jose A. Garrido; ICREA Prof. Daniel Maspoch; Prof. Laura Lechuga; and, ICREA Prof. Clivia Sotomayor-Torres. The afterwards discussion included relevant topics such as Open Science, knowledge transference, regional development, European funding and how to be more competitive in the European and global research landscape.