One Hundred ICTA-UAB Researchers to Address the Main Environmental Challenges of Today and Tomorrow
ICTA-UAB will host the 2nd Spring Symposium next May 16 and 17 at the UAB campus
The Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) will address the main environmental challenges that society must face today and in the future, in a symposium that will take place on the 16th and 17th of May. The scientific meeting, whose uniqueness is its interdisciplinary and international approach, will focus on the identification of these environmental challenges, how to address them and how the results derived from scientific research can be transformed into effective policies. The activities will be carried out at the Faculty of Sciences and at the headquarters of the ICTA-UAB, in the Bellaterra campus.
One hundred international scientists, mostly belonging to this research centre dedicated to studying the causes of environmental problems, will participate in a two-day meeting in which they will present the main novelties of their studies. The papers that will be presented cover a wide range of scientific disciplines, from environmental engineering to ecological economics, and from climate modeling to ecological anthropology.
Through some forty oral presentations, the researchers of the ICTA-UAB will show that the approach to environmental issues must be carried out from different knowledge areas. With the environmental concern as a backdrop, this symposium will present scientific advances in such diverse topics as red coral conservation, low carbon economy, indigenous knowledge of climate change, circular economy, environmental conflicts, water-food-energy nexus, ocean acidification, urban food production, economic degrowth, biodiversity conservation policies, urban green spaces, forests and human health interaction, pollution due to microplastics on island beaches, carbon pricing, urban environmental justice, open access to scholarly communication, global model of marine fishery, agroecological knowledge conservation and the transition towards a new energetic system.
Three researchers working in leading international centres in environmental research will give three outstanding conferences. Marina Fischer-Kowalski, founder of the Institute of Social Ecology in Vienna, will talk about the intersections and contradictions of the Sustainable Development Goals and Climate Agreements; Thomas Pedersen, former director of the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, will tackle the push and pull of acting on global warming, and Robert Ayres, founder of the Center for the Management of Environmental Resources (INSEAD), will explore how to overcome institutional barriers in energy saving. These keynote speakers will participate in a round table on where environmental research is going and how to overcome the challenges.
Since its creation in 2003, the ICTA-UAB has experienced continuous and steady growth, and currently has 70 senior researchers who participate in some 200 scientific publications each year, covering all major journals dealing with environmental issues. The ICTA-UAB has some thirty Postdoctoral Fellows and approximately 30 PhD students graduate from the centre each year. Distinguished by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness as a 'María de Maeztu Excellence Unit', the ICTA-UAB is on the way to becoming one of the leading European centres in environmental studies, distinguished by its international focus, multi-disciplinary approach to environmental studies, and cooperation between various stakeholders within the framework of sustainability based on social responsibility.