The IEEC celebrates its 4th Forum with more than 100 attendees

2022-06-08 15:30:00

The IEEC 2022 Forum, the 4th edition of these meetings, was held last 2 June, at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB). This year's event is the first major one organized in person by the Institute after the COVID pandemic that has hit us in the last two years.

The event, which brought together more than 100 attendees, was inaugurated by Ignasi Ribas, IEEC’s director, with a welcome speech and a brief general presentation on the new functions of the Institute as well as the new internal organisation. The director of the Institute’s Space Sector Promotion Area, Josep Colomé, then spoke about the IEEC’s Infrastructures. IEEC researcher Francisco Castander then presented the FEDER Call for Instrumentation at the Montsec Observatory (OdM). The first session of the morning concluded with the round table “NewSpace and future Earth observation missions'', which was attended by IEEC members Adriano Camps and Mercè Vall·llossera, as well as by Jordi Corbera, from the Institut Cartogràfic i Geològic de Catalunya (ICGC), and by Carolina Gabarró, from the Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC). The conversation was moderated by Alberto Garcia-Rigo, head of the IEEC’s Project Office.

The event continued with presentations on scientific and technological topics in which IEEC members have played a key role over the past year, such as the study of meteorites, the compression of data from remote sensing and the results of ‘MELISA’, the project that won the IEEC Internal Call presented in 2021. In addition, the researcher from the Astrobiology Centre (CAB-CSIC/INTA) Pablo G. Pérez González presented the latest news about the James Webb Space Telescope. The second session of the morning ended with the new section 'Elevator Pitches', 2-minute presentations and a single slide, with the aim of presenting the work being done at the Institute. In addition, in this edition the possibility of presenting posters was also introduced as a novelty. Both initiatives were quite successful.

The afternoon started with the presentation of the new space program of the European Space Agency (ESA), Voyage 2050, as well as the ‘Photsat’ mission, which aims to create a star survey with a significantly shorter re-scan time than that required by existing instruments. The event concluded with a second round table, entitled ‘Professional career development’, in which IEEC members Lluís Galbany and Dani Marín, together with Nora Garralda (ATG Europe) and Roger Jové (Balamis), talked to Francesca Figueras (IEEC) about the difficulties of pursuing a professional career related to the space field, both from an academic and business point of view.

Many thanks to all the speakers, attendees and the CCCB for the welcome. See you next time!