The scope of Science in Society has progressively evolved, extending its work across society with the aim of transmitting scientific knowledge and the application of the scientific method to foster a reasoned, objective and critical spirit, through encounters and cooperation between scientists and an active citizenry of all ages.
Today, the Foundation is returning to its roots by focusing its activity on education as a key driver of social and economic transformation, in particular around the international conference STEAMConf Barcelona. Since its creation in 2014, STEAMConf has helped bring about profound changes in the education system that are now part of everyday life in many schools and in public and private institutional programmes—with results that urgently need to be deepened, scaled and spread across the whole education system.
The Team
Paca Cíller
President
An advocate for scientific and technological culture, she has been Director of Communications at the la Caixa Foundation, Director of International Relations and Programmes at CosmoCaixa (Barcelona Science Museum), and Executive Director of the European Network of Science Centres and Museums (ECSITE). Earlier, as a final-year project, she co-founded Staff 76 with two fellow University of Barcelona graduates and, as director, organised two international congresses on education focused on play and toys as key factors in connecting children with the real world and supporting rich learning experiences.
Coral Regí
General Secretary
A biology graduate from the University of Barcelona and educator by vocation, she was Director of the Escola Virolai for twenty-five years and is now an international consultant on educational transformation, leadership and formative assessment. She is a member of the Consell Escolar de Catalunya in recognition of her standing, and sits on the scientific committee of the Educació Demà project and the board of the Societat Catalana de Pedagogia.
Elisabet Cuspinera
Treasurer
A drawing teacher trained at the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes de San Fernando and holder of a master’s in cultural management, art and museology from New York University, she spent 22 years as cultural attaché at the Spanish Consulate in New York and collaborated with the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at NYU. She brings this experience to the Foundation’s mission of stimulating and promoting scientific and technological (STEAM) culture, in particular within the education community.
Maria Aloy
Director
Graduate of the University of Illinois (B.F.A. and M.Sc.), where she was Assistant Professor, teaching courses on free software tools and open culture. Her thesis, Free Culture Project, fuses the power of technology with the transformative power of education. She holds a postgraduate qualification in Design Research & Management Educational Evaluation & Research from the Instituto Superior de Educação e Ciências de Lisbon (ISEC) and is a Fab Academy (CBA-MIT) graduate. In 2015 SokoTech created a digital social innovation lab at the intersection of the arts, science and technology.
