Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Good afternoon everybody. First and foremost, I would like to thank you for joining us
on this first day of the Science Week, which I hope will be of interest to you all.
As you know, the aim of the Science Week is to present some of the activities we carry out
at the Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology Research Centre in such a way that they can
be understood by the general public. This is something we are not used to doing,
as we normally present our findings to peers, who do basically the same work we do.
We are used to giving conferences using a type of language that today would make no sense.
Today, we have to communicate what our work is all about without the use of complex
scientific terms or anything of that sort.
I would like to thank the organizers, who have dedicated many hours to the preparation
of this event, such as Estrella -Manager at CINN-, other CINN employees,
and people from other institutions, whom we work with every day,
such as ITMA Foundation.
I would also like to mention that almost exactly four years ago, on November 18th 2007,
the Constitutional Agreement for the creation of our centre was signed, giving rise to
a joint centre between the CSIC, the University of Oviedo and the Principado de Asturias.
It has been a tough four years.
Trying to start up and develop a project like this one, during the economic crisis
that we are in has been quite a challenge.
This agreement is to be renewed shortly, and I am guessing that our budget
will be reduced, according to the current financial situation.
However, I must say that regardless of the economic difficulties that we have faced
-as you may know, we were going to acquire new equipment, and move to a new building,
but this has not yet been possible- all the scientific and administrative duties of the CINN
have been completed as agreed, which means that all the CINN's staff have done
an outstanding job, fulfilling the Strategy Plan that had been laid out,
in spite of the adverse circumstances.
Imagine what could be achieved in the future if our Authorities
were to invest in our Research Centre.
Today we will present a few examples of our fields of work in order to introduce the CINN's
operating framework. We have in-house speakers, who are the CINN's long term
investment. They are also members of the CSIC. Furthermore, we have invited one of our oldest
partners -I say "oldest" because of the number of years we have been working together-
Professor Moya, who will kindly share the results of one of our research areas
of highest collaboration. I think you will really appreciate his conference, as it involves
a very novel and interesting subject.
In terms of in-house people presenting their work, we have José Luis Menéndez Río,
who probably has the hardest task, as he will try to be very generalist
in a field like ours, presenting the General Principles of Nanoscience.
I think this could be a very interesting speech for the audience.
After him, our colleague Luis Antonio Díaz Rodríguez, another researcher at the CINN
and a member of the CSIC, will talk us through the future of dental implants and nanomaterials,
fields which he has been researching over the last four or five years.
Following him, Carlos Fidel Gutiérrez Gonzá***, one of our Post-Docs,
who has been working with us for many years
both in Madrid with Professor Moya and here will talk about the applications that Nanomaterials
have in the textile field, an area that our centre has been researching for a couple of years,
in collaboration with ITMA Foundation.
After, we have Professor Serafín Moya, who will talk about the nano effect
on biocide materials and finally, Teresa Rodríguez Suárez, another Post-Doc,
who will shortly be leaving us to work in London for a couple of years, will talk about the nano
effect on materials under extreme conditions, another of the CINN's research areas.
I thank you all for the time you have dedicated to preparing these presentations and,
if you will allow me a little of self-criticism, I suggest that we should do these things
more often, not only during the Science Week.
I think that in these four years, we have not done enough to let Asturias or Spain know
that there is a Centre dedicated to the issues presented here today.
Doing this should be one of our future objectives. I think we should show people
the quality things we make here and the proficiency of our workers.
I promise to make an effort in order to organize such events more often.
I hope you enjoy the presentations, after which we can have a short discussion with
the speakers. That's all for now, thank you very much, I will leave you with the first speaker,
José Luis Menéndez Río.