The Department of Foreign Action and Open Government of the Generalitat schedules a meeting with the consular corps at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center

15 November 2021
The objective of the conference is to present the scientific, research and talent attraction potential of Catalonia.

The Minister for Foreign Action and Open Government, Victoria Alsina, and the Minister for Research and Universities of the Catalan Government, Gemma Geis, have accompanied the accredited consular corps in Barcelona on a visit today to the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC). Representatives of 40 consulates have participated in the day.

"We want to grow relations with the consular network because we understand that it is an efficient and good way to connect Catalonia to the world", said the Minister Alsina. She  considers that "it is very important, as part of foreign action, to value key infrastructures for the country such as the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, and the Government must work so that the research hub we have in Catalonia is also a fundamental factor for connecting with the outside world and attracting talent to achieve projects of all kinds for the benefit of the country. The post-pandemic world has taught us that the challenges are global and that therefore the solutions must be global and joint, and all the data-related projects that are led from here are a good example of what we must to do in the future ”, she added.

From the Department of Foreign Action and Open Government, Minister Alsina explained, “we want to emphasize a project called 'Catalonia, country of data', which will promote public-private collaboration of companies, the civic sector and administrations public institutions throughout Catalonia to share data, to open it, and to use it to make better decisions and better implement the Government's public policies ”.

The associate director of the BSC, Josep M. Martorell, has been in charge of informing them of the work carried out at the centre. Martorell emphasizes “BSC is an immensely international institution, 40% of our workers come from more than 50 different countries. Having a direct relationship with the consular corpos is an opportunity and it is very useful to us, because many of them are representatives of countries with which we interact academically, we have workers who come from there, we have bilateral relations with centers like ours in those countries, etc."  The associate director of the BSC adds that "it is not only a relationship in terms of attracting talent and doing science together, it is also an interesting relationship because many of the users of our computer are from all over Europe, and we have a lot of relationship with foreign companies".

Further information here: https://exteriors.gencat.cat/ca/detalls/noticia/not_211115_cosconsularbsc