Today July 1, at 12 p.m., the inauguration ceremony of the 9th edition of the «Spend the summer at the park!» practicum programme, aimed at second cycle university students who have not yet completed their degree, has been held in the Felix Serratosa Hall. The objective of this initiative –organized every year by the Barcelona Science Park (PCB)- is to bring the research world closer to students from any university worldwide by enabling them to participate in projects that are currently being carried out in groups, research centers and companies based at the PCB.

The opening ceremony has been conducted by the general director of the Barcelona Science Park, Fernando Albericio, who has welcomed the students. Afterwards, Maria del Mont Llosas, coordinator of «Spend the summer at the park! » and adjunct director of the Research and Innovation Department of the PCB, has explained to students the objectives, structure and activities that are performed in the Barcelona Science park, as well as the operation of this programme. At the end of the opening ceremony, Anna Vilches, technician from the Department of Work Safety and the Environment, has explained to all attendees all matters related with laboratory safety and waste management.

This year 37 students, 30 of whom are from Spain and the rest from Europe (Italy, France, Austria, Poland and Turkey) and Latin America (Mexico and Colombia), are participating in the programme. The programme lasts 2 to 3 months, between July and September, with a minimum time dedication of 5 hours per day. The practicum is carried out in groups that center their activity primarily in the field of biomedicine and biotechnology

All students will join different technological platforms of the PCB –specifically, the Drug Discovery Platform, the Nanotechnology Platform and the Experimental Toxicology and Ecotoxicology Unit (UTOX-PCB)-, and research groups from several institutes and centres located at the PCB, such as: the Centre for Film-History Research; the Computer Simulation and Modeling Laboratory (CoSMoLAB); the Department of Stratigraphy, Paleontology and Marine Geosciences of the University of Barcelona; the Bioengineering Institute of Catalonia (IBEC); the Institute for Molecular Biology of Barcelona (IBMB-CSIC); the Biomedicine Institute of the University of Barcelona (IBUB); the Catalan Institute of Climate Sciences (IC3); the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona); the Laboratory of Contemporary History and Cinema (Department of Contemporary History), and the Almirall-PCB Mixed Unit. Different companies based at the Park, such as Medichem, Meteosim, Neuroscience Technologies, Neurotec Pharma and Ommia Molecular, will also host the students.

This is the ninth consecutive year that the Barcelona Science Park offers this programme. In previous editions nearly 250 students have participated in the programme. According to assessment surveys, both students and tutors have reported being very satisfied with this collaboration, a fact that is confirmed by the relationship that students maintain with the research group they have worked with even after their practicum has ended.