UABDIVULGA awarded National Scientific Communication Prize

Premi Nacional de Comunicació Científica per a UABDIVULGA

UAB Rector Margarita Arboix accepted the National Scientific Communication Prize on behalf of the UABDivulga on Monday 15 October at the National Research Prizes 2017 awards ceremony. The event took place at the National Theatre of Catalonia and was presided by President Quim Torra.

16/10/2018

“It is very important that a public university, by disseminating research results, can reach society and share what is being achieved. We must return to society all that society gives us”, UAB Rector Arboix pointed out at the ceremony.

Rector Arboix expressed her gratitude to the jury for the award and acknowledged the tasks conducted by the university's Area of Communication and Promotion, as well as that of the researchers committed to disseminating the latest in science. “It is very important that a public university, by disseminating research results, can reach society and share what is being achieved. We must return to society all that society gives us”, she pointed out.

President Torra, who was accompanied by Minister for Business and Knowledge Àngels Chacón, highlighted the fact that these awards are an acknowledgement to “the excellence, efforts, commitment and dedication” of Catalonia's community of knowledge and especially of the award winners.

UABDIVULGA was created in 2003 with the objective of increasing the amount of research results communicated to society in an easily accessible way, and of increasing the participation of researchers in scientific communication activities. The journal currently includes over 2,000 articles and has almost 3,000 subscribers.

UABDIVULGA offers popular science articles on scientific advances and PhD theses, as well as general articles on issues being worked on in the different areas of knowledge studies at university. There are also videos on the research projects being conducted and interviews with experts participating in scientific meetings held at the UAB or involving UAB researchers. The journal also promotes science dissemination through a series of activities (conferences, exhibitions, etc.) organised or with the involvement of the university and other research institutions and entities.

The National Research Prizes, organised by the Government of Catalonia and the Catalan Foundation for Research and Innovation (FCRI), offer social recognition of the science and activities conducted by researchers, patrons, entrepreneurs and communicators.

The National Research Prize 2017 will also be awarded to biocomputer specialist Roderic Guigó, coordinator of the Bioinformatics and Genomics Programme at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) and lecturer in Bioinformatics at the UPF; in the category of Young Talent, the prize will go to Italian astrophysicist Nanda Rea, staff scientist of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) at the Institute of Space Sciences (IEEC-CSIC), specialised in the study of magnetars, neutron stars with the strongest magnetic field existing in the universe; the TV3 Marathon was awarded the prize in the category of Scientific Patronage for its work during the past 25 years in raising funds for biomedical research and raising social awareness of severe and chronic illnesses; and finally, the prize in the category of R&D Public-Private Partnership went to the collaborative research platform on mobility Cooperative Automotive Research Network (CARNET), launched by SEAT, Volkswagen Group Research and the UPC.