UABDivulga - Barcelona recerca i innovació

Description:

Share via WhatsAppShare via e-mail

Event details

•  Start: 10 Jun 2026  13:00
•  End: 10 Jun 2026  14:30
•  iHC Seminar room

In this Work in Progress (WiP) seminar, Hèctor Isern examines ocean monitoring systems in Europe between 1977 and 1992, and the role that satellite data played in this period. More specifically, it analyses the production, distribution, and use of data through the case of ERS-1, the European Space Agency's first major Earth-observation satellite, launched in 1991. More broadly, this work foregrounds the question of how satellite data became a powerful tool in late twentieth-century ocean and climate science, contributing to the production of knowledge that often appeared authoritative and uncontested. By the close of the twentieth century, ocean monitoring systems had become firmly consolidated in Europe, with satellite data forming one of their fundamental components while also providing one of the key rationales for their continued expansion. The dissertation tackles the question of how satellite data came to function as a sine qua non.

In short, Isern's argument is that satellite data co-produced and reproduced old and new data-related practices. The notion of encapsulation helps explain this reciprocal process. Satellite data paved the way for the expansion of ocean monitoring systems because they encapsulated and mobilised a broader constellation of old and new elements. Satellite data concealed the instruments, algorithms, standards, processing chains, labour, institutional arrangements, and political expectations that made them possible. As these data products were distributed, they did not merely depict the ocean; they also co-produced and reproduced the very practices through which ocean monitoring systems expanded. In other words, data never travels alone.

Commentator: Xavier Roqué (UAB)

Hèctor Isern is a PhD student working on the ERC-SG project «CLIMASAT: Remote-sensing satellite data and the making of global climate in Europe, 1980s–2000s». Her academic background includes a Bachelor's degree in Environmental Sciences (UB), a Bachelor's degree in Philosophy (UB), a Master's degree in Environmental Engineering (UPC), and a Master's degree in the History of Science (UAB). Her research interests include the history of Earth observation satellites, the relationship between science and diplomacy, the history of data, the history of technology, and environmental history.

If you are interested in reading the entire text in advance —highly recommended, since the WiP seminar format presupposes prior reading— you can request it from Hector.Isern@uab.cat or Laia.Torres.Casas@uab.cat

Remember that you can bring your lunch on site, as we will have a lunch-seminar format, rigorous and informal at the same time.

Place: iHC Seminar room

Date: Wednesday 10, June de 2026 - 13:00h

Date: Wednesday 10, June de 2026 - 14:30h

Description:

PerCientEx (Scientific Journalism of Excellence) returns to the CosmoCaixa Science Museum on 11 June at 6:00 p.m. On its tenth anniversary, the PerCientEx project focuses on watchdog science journalism, one of the most necessary aspects of journalism to guarantee the integrity of science.

Registrations open at this link.

The project is coordinated by the Catalan Association of Scientific Communication (ACCC) and the Department of Communication and Education of the UAB, and receives the support of the “laCaixa” Foundation.  

The event will bring together Rodrigo Pérez Ortega, Mexican journalist from Science who has investigated abuses at university; Mira Petrovic, researcher at the Catalan Institute for Water Research (ICRA), who alerted about corrupt practices; and Pilar Paneque, director of the National Agency for Quality and Accreditation (ANECA), who is promoting new ways to encourage scientific quality and discourage bad practices.

The speakers will discuss how scientific journalism can contribute to promoting integrity and contrasting bad scientific practices. In addition, during the event, new results and a set of examples of watchdog science journalism in the Ibero-American field will be presented.

More information: The role of scientific journalism against bad practices and in favor of the integrity of science is the focus of the tenth edition of the PerCientEx conference.

Place: CosmoCaixa Science Museum

Date: Thursday 11, June de 2026 - 18:00h

Description:

On 17 June at 11:00 a.m., the Research Group on Immigration and Ethnic Minorities (GEDIME) and the Migration Studies and Research Centre of the UAB organise a sesssion entitled "Refugi a Espanya: negligència, arbitrarietat i desemparament en un sistema col·lapsat" [Asylum in Spain: negligence, arbitrariness and abandonment in a collapsed system]. The session will take place at the meeting room of the UAB Faculty of Political Sciences and Sociology and aims to analyse from a critical viewpoint the current situation of the asylum and refugee system in Spain. Focus will be put on institutional negligences, administrative arbitrariness, and the abandonment of those seeking international protection.

The conference will be given by Arnau Poy, lecturer in sociology at the UAB. Poy will reflect onthe social, political and legal consequences of a collapsed system, as well as on the obstacles encountered by refugees when trying to access their rights, when applying for asylum and in receiving effective protection.

Place: Faculty of Political Science and Sociology (meeting room)

Date: Wednesday 17, June de 2026 - 11:00h