Once again the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST) is in charge of selecting researchers to teach at high schools in Catalonia for this year’s edition of the Amgen TransferCiència programme, organised by the biotechnology company Amgen, and the Fundació Catalana per a la Recerca i la Innovació (FCRi).
The Amgen TransferCiència programme aims to improve science learning in high schools by placing talented researchers into secondary schools to provide more comprehensive and complete science education for high school students, and to support teachers in specific teaching areas such as genetics and biotechnology. The programme completed its pilot year successfully in 2020 and is now in its second edition. In total, more than 800 high school students from four autonomous communities in Spain will benefit from the programme this year. For BIST, the initiative forms part of the BIST Global Science programme, which aims to give postdoctoral researchers the skills to pursue positions in important sectors of society, including research leadership, business, science policy, and science education.
BIST is once again collaborating with the Amgen TransferCiència programme by selecting the talented researchers who will be placed in schools across Catalonia. The 14 scientists chosen this year come from: the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC, a BIST centre), the August Pi i Sunyer Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBAPS), the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona, a BIST centre), the Institute of Neurosciences at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), the Genetics Group at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), the University of Vic-Central University of Catalonia (UVic-UCC), the Sant Joan de Déu Research Foundation (SJD), the Institute of Biomedicine and Biotechnology of Cantabria (IBBTEC), the Vall d’Hebron Research Institute (VHIR), and the CRAG-IRTA-CSIC-UAB-UB Agrigenomics Research Center. Researchers have been trained by the Health Sciences Educational Research Group (GRECS) at Pompeu Fabra University to ensure they are fully ready to participate successfully in the initiative.
The participanting researchers will explore secondary school education by developing personal skills and learning about new approaches to teaching experimental sciences. The focus will be on improving students’ knowledge of genetics and biotechnology, showing what the scientific method is and how it is applied in research activities, and inspiring students to pursue STEM disciplines. Participants will get the chance to teach students directly, practicing what they have learned and contributing to bringing science closer to society, one of the aims of the BIST Global Science programme.
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