Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Success of Open Day


The initiative set in motion by Science Meets Society in 2008 continues. The third Open Day attracted a very diverse, motivated and interested public to the Charles Darwin square and the PRBB building.

The public queued patiently to get into the multimedia installations and to sign up to guided tours. Meanwhile, the volunteers were rushed off their feet dealing with questions, drawing up lists for tours or doing experiments and playing games with the children. The inside of the building was a hive of activity with groups of the public, accompanied by guides, following routes during which researchers explained how their labs work, their research projects or how to use a piece of equipment.

Upon realising that all these people were volunteers, one attendee said to us “I’m jealous, people who work here seem so excited and happy about their work”, and the truth is that, at the end of the day, we volunteers were exhausted but very pleased. And for good reason, according to the data: the approximate number of attendees was 3850, of which 2090 visited the building. 2300 participated in the experiments and activities: 672 in the multimedia facilities, 150 in the scientific cafe and 90 in the reading corner.

All of this was only possible thanks to the 181 volunteers from the PRBB centres. Many thanks to all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Check out some pics of the day in our flickr account!

European Science Journalists at the PRBB



A group of science journalists from the European Union of Science Journalists Associations (EUSJA) visited the PRBB last Wednesday October 27. They came from Belgium, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Russia, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

During a couple of hours the journalists visited the building and some of the facilities, like the CRG advanced microscopy unit, presented by Timo Zimmerman. They also had a chance to talk to some researchers, such as en Manolis Kogevinas (CREAL), Anna Bigas (IMIM) or Maria José Barrero (CMRB) about the research taking place in their centres.

The group of journalists were accompanied by representatives of the University ofGirona and of the Catalan Association of Scientific Communication (ACCC), who hosted them. During their 3-day "Study Trip" in Catalonia, the EUSJA journalists sisited several research institutions in Girona and Barcelona.