R&D&i? What are they for?

Day by day, research groups, universities and primarily research centers, face the challenge of getting agreements with companies and win public funding to continue with their R&D&i activity. In addition, they must communicate how they are investing the public funds they have received.

However, it seems that very little scientific or technological news can reach the majority of population. Although many institutions and mass media are taking commitment in this regard , we can rarely see this kind of news on mainstream news programs . On countless occasions, it appears as if only those news stories with an extremely curious ingredient are eventually published by media. At the end, it seems that only the anecdotal is published

Nevertheless, the responsibility is not coming only from the media but also from scientists and institutions generating that knowledge, who must keep the media informed about the latest developments and advances, their possibilities and public transcendence as far as possible. Before looking for the attention of the audience, it is a must to try to get the interest of the journalists.

The lack of information of the society will always generate social inequality, because the ‘curiosity to know’ will be reduced to the very minimum. The logical consequence of this will be the reduction of the general knowledge and culture as well.

The advance and the growth of the society go through the dissemination of scientific and technical information in order to form individuals who are competent, critic, and actively participative in the science and technology progress.

Therefore, one of the goals of dissemination is always to encourage new scientific vocations in the youth. It is necessary to motivate each generation to replace the former one, so that the wheel keeps turning.

In addition, every organization knows the difficulty that it means to explain the benefit from any project to the client and to get public funds too. In this specific case it requires even a bigger effort due to the technical content.

So, the dissemination of Gradiant’s work, its capacities and achievements, as well as encouraging new vocations, has always been one of the main goals of the Center. Through its different channels, Gradiant tries to explain “how it works” and “what this is for” about its projects.

Throught the year, Gradiant organizes different dissemination activities, not only specially planned for children and teenagers, but also for elderly and people with special needs. The Center offers activities aimed at collectives traditionally excluded from these kind of initiatives. In fact, Gradiant is currently developing a project (funded by FECYT) consisting of bringing some technologies closer to students with special necessities, the kind of technologies to help them to improve their learning methods and enjoy a better quality of life.