2017
Media Presence
In the year 2017, a total of 1155 media news items that made reference to the IMIM were recorded, generated by 35 press releases sent out. With respect to the previous year, the number of impacts was somewhat lower, mainly because in the year 2016 there was a spectacular media response to some press releases, with a number of impacts much higher than usual, and also because this year there have been fewer issues suited to press releases.
Of all the appearances in the press, 91% were because of the press releases issued by the communication department and only 9% were due to demand not directly linked to any information issued by the institution - a percentage that remains stable year after year and that indicates the proactivity of the institution with regard to the media.
Distribution of the news by type of media. Years 2016 and 2017
Web Notes
Web notes are topics chosen because they are of scientific and/or institutional importance but that would not have much repercussion as a press release sent to the media, thereby providing a new communication resource. This year, a total of 32 web releases were posted - one more than in the same period of the previous year.
Distribution of presence in the media by research programme
This year has seen a predominance of media instances of the Epidemiology and Public Health programme (415 instances) and an increased presence of programmes such as the Biomedical Informatics and the Inflammatory and Cardiovascular Disorders programmes.
Distribution of news items by research programme
Website
In 2017, the website received 118,024 visits with 465,200 page views (at an average of 4 page views per visit). If we study the origin of visitors by country, we find that 85% of visits are from Spain, followed by the United States (2.5%), the United Kingdom (1.7%), Mexico (1%) and Germany (1%). The most visited pages continue to be the home page and the job-offers page, followed by the research-programmes area.
Intranet
A total of 798 news items were published along with 445 agenda news items, related with the scientific sessions, a space that was created in February 2017 and that incorporates the agenda of all the sessions held at the PRBB.
The IMIM Twitter account (@imimat) currently has 2,882 tweets posted and 4,759 followers. We were pioneers of this tool on a scientific level in 2008 and it is now a consolidated tool with new followers every day.
Sciences Outreach Actions
Science Cafés
The year 2017 saw continuation of the “Un Mar de Ciència” (A Sea of Science) initiative which started up in October 2016. Its aim is to bring science closer to citizens through science cafés in collaboration with the Libraries of Barcelona network and the Provincial Council (Diputació) of Barcelona.
In 2017, we organized nine Science cafés.
The cafés held were:
• 28/11/2017. Healthy Cities. Biblioteca Xavier Benguerel. Barcelona
• 14/11/2017. Don’t Let Arthritis Stop You. Biblioteca Poblenou Manuel-Arranz. Barcelona
• 07/11/2017. Living with Pain? Biblioteca Poblenou Manuel-Arranz. Barcelona
• 24/10/2017. Antibiotics: Use and Abuse. Biblioteca Xavier Benguerel. Barcelona
• 06/06/2017. Immunotherapy: The Great Hope Against Cancer. Biblioteca del Fondo. Santa Coloma de Gramenet
• 22/03/2017. Depression and its Warning Signs. Biblioteca Sagrada Família-Josep M. Ainaud de Lasarte. Barcelona
• 28/02/2017. Immunotherapy: The Great Hope Against Cancer. Biblioteca Xavier Benguerel. Barcelona
• 26/01/2017. How Does the Mediterranean Diet Protect Us? Biblioteca Joan Triadú. Vic
• 18/01/2017. Eating with the Brain in Mind. Biblioteca Barceloneta-La Fraternitat. Barcelona.
Project: Apropem la Ciència als Centres d’Educació Secundària (Bringing Science to Secondary Schools - ACCÉS)
Continuing with the ACCÉS project, we have received visits from 9 schools in Catalonia, with more than 257 students taking part in the program. The ACCÉS project visits are included in the Escolab project, an initiative of the Barcelona Science program of the Culture Institute and of the Scientific Culture program of the Education Institute of Barcelona City Council, which brings together the activities of the research centers, thus providing them with greater visibility.
Biojunior
This is an activity aimed at young people in the final year of compulsory secondary education (4th year) and first year of the Spanish baccalaureate (5th year), organized by the PRBB, with the aim of showing the day-to-day reality of research and sparking scientific vocations among the students.
It is open to 300 students, who can visit the laboratories and facilities, hear first-hand about what goes on and enjoy a scientific talk. In this third edition, IMIM took part with two stations: the laboratory of the research group on Integrated Pharmacology and Systems Neuroscience and the Anti-doping Laboratory.
BioJúnior is organized in conjunction with the awarding of the 12th PRBB Awards for research in health and life sciences. In the 2017 edition, 191 students submitted a total of 172 studies.
Open Day
The Open Day is held annually at the PRBB with the participation of professionals from all the centres that make up the PRBB. The tenth edition was held on 7 October and involved the collaboration of 256 volunteers, and more than 1500 people were able to enjoy activities and workshops, guided visits of the laboratories, scientific talks, and activities for children.
This year, the participants were able to visit six IMIM stations, and listen to the scientific talks “Deciphering the Language of Neurones to Understand the Ill Brain” by Maria Victòria Puig Velasco, a researcher from the research group on Integrated Pharmacology and Systems Neuroscience, and “Cardiovascular Effects of Chronic and Intense Exercise. Healthy Life Habits: The Formula for Looking After the Heart.”, by Begoña Benito and Sonia Ruiz, researchers at the Biomedical Research in Heart Diseases group and cardiologists at the Hospital del Mar.
In Plaça Darwin, attendees were able to discover their cardiovascular risk level in the tent that was set up by the research groups on Epidemiology and Cardiovascular Genetics and on Cardiovascular Risk and Nutrition,
“Viu la recerca de La Marató” (Experience the “Marató” Telethon Research)
This is a project from TV3’s Fundació La Marató to publicize some of the projects sponsored by the telethon at research centres. The project was started in 2015 and involves the organisation of a guided tour by researchers around a project funded by the Marató. During 2017, the IMIM hosted two visits by donors.
During the visits, donors were able to see first-hand the current state of the project and were able to visit the laboratories where this research is carried out. They were also able to listen and talk to the researchers. The visit was highly rated by the visitors, especially the explanations given by the researchers.
The aim of this initiative, which the Fundació la Marató calls “Visita la recerca de La Marató” (Telethon Research Visit) is to explain to anyone interested the advances sponsored through the solidarity of a project that, since 1992, has raised 173 million euros and sponsored 794 research projects relating to a wide range of serious and chronic diseases.
Research with RecerCaixa
This is a program of Obra Social La Caixa and the Catalan Association of Public Universities (ACUP), which has an annual participation of nearly 1000 students aged between 10 and 12 years; it promotes the design and execution of a research project in school. Its most notable characteristic is that it has the support of real researchers who receive grants from RecerCaixa and “luxury” consultants, as well as teaching support and a big final meeting where the results are exhibited. Each group of researchers is assigned a group of two schools that, during the academic year, design and execute a real science project and have the opportunity to learn about the science first-hand through contact with and visits to the researchers.
The project “Analysis of the link between socioeconomic status and cardiovascular disease” of the IMIM research group on Epidemiology and Cardiovascular Genetics takes part in the program. As well as supervision of the project, this involves visits by the schools to IMIM.
Interview a Scientist
This is an activity organized by PRBB, aimed at children in the second cycle of primary school (9-12 years of age), which was begun in 2014. The activity consists of the children preparing a set of questions at school, which are sent to the researcher before the day of the visit. At the center, the children are shown a simple interactive presentation that explains what PRBB is and the centers of which it is composed; they then interview the researcher. After the interview, the children visit the center and see a laboratory. At school, the children work on the concepts covered and submit a report on what they have learned at the center. It is scheduled as part of the educational activities provided to primary schools and 4-5 are carried out each academic year. IMIM participated with 1 researcher, Marta Salido, from the Translational Research Group on Hematological Neoplasms.
Science Talks for Students (4th year secondary students)
PRBB provides a series of scientific conferences in secondary schools in collaboration with Scientific Culture of the Barcelona Municipal Institute of Education. The conferences last one hour and there are approximately 180 places per conference. This year, IMIM took part with a talk titled “Bipolar disorder” by Dr. Francesc Colom, a researcher of the research group on Mental Health.
The Youth Mobile Festival: YoMo
Participation together with the rest of the PRBB centres at the GSMA Mobile World Congress students’ festival, dubbed YoMo, and offering workshops for the 20,000 students registered. Each of the centres contributes in this space with their knowledge and areas of speciality by offering a complete programme of activities in a show of interdisciplinarity from the PRBB where the research centres are complementary and collaborate together, tackling diverse aspects of biomedicine. In this first edition, the IMIM took part with a workshop organised by researchers from the Biomedical Informatics programme.
YoMo opened its doors as part of the GSMA Mobile World Congress from 27 February to 2 March 2017, and it occupied 13,000 m2 at the Fira de Montjuic trade fair venue, welcoming organisations, associations, companies and R&D laboratories in a collective effort to offer those young people registered the opportunity to have fun while learning about science and technology.
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info@imim.es