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40 secondary school students will carry out research at the Barcelona Science Park

By 8 de July de 2009November 18th, 2020No Comments
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 08.07.2009

40 secondary school students will carry out research at the Barcelona Science Park

This year a group of secondary school students from 40 schools in Catalonia will conduct their 2009-2010 school year research project in collaboration with researchers from the Barcelona Science Park (PCB). This collaboration is possible thanks to the programme, promoted by the Science Diffusion Area of the PCB together with the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) and the support of the Social Welfare Department of the Caixa de Catalunya. The objective of this programme is to promote research in the educational community, as well as to encourage scientific vocations amongst the youth.

This programme, which celebrates its 5th edition this year, offers secondary school students the support of a Barcelona Science Park researcher who provides guidance in bibliographic research, and enables them to carry out hands-on practice sessions in the laboratories of the PCB. However, the head of the project is always the centre’s or school’s tutor who supervises the student’s research work and requests this help.

The students’ teachers, on the other hand, are also advised by a researcher who works at the Barcelona Science Park, Josep Maria Fernández-Novell –from the IRB Barcelona- who boasts a wealth of experience in tutoring research projects and in the field of secondary education and who holds the position of coordinator for the “Tutoring for Secondary School Students” programme.

The following groups are included amongst the participants in this year’s initiative: three scientific-technological platforms (Drug Discovery Platform; Experimental Toxicology and Ecotoxicology Unit and High Throughput Chrystallography Platform); seven groups from the IRB Barcelona: Cell and Developmental Biology; Design, Synthesis and Structure of Peptids and Proteins; Metabolic Engineering and Diabetes Therapy; Biomolecular NMR Spectroscopy; Structure and Function of Chromatin; Cell Division Group; Research Unit for Asymmetrical Synthesis; a group from the Bioengineering Institute of Catalonia (IBEC): Bio/Non-Bio Interactions for Regenerative Medicine, and a group from the Institute of Molecular Biology of Barcelona (IBMB-CSIC): Structural Biology. A further organization located at the PCB that will be participating this year is the Centre for Design and Optimisation of Processes and Materials (DIOPMA).

This year over 70 participation applications have been received. Project selection is based on the interest of the topic chosen by the student, the research areas in which PCB researchers who participate in this edition are working on –in order to be able to respond to the research topics the students wish to develop-, the students’ academic transcripts and their personal motivation.

This year’s project will begin in July and will finalize at the beginning of next year, which will be the project presentation deadline. The three best research projects will also receive an award granted by the Barcelona Science Park and the Social Welfare of the Caixa de Catalunya. This award will be handed personally to students and centres by the PCB Management Department during the inauguration ceremony of the “” Fair, which is organised by the PCB with the support of the Social Welfare of Caixa de Catalunya and celebrated annually between the months of March and April.