During the week of 3-7 June, the Centro de Estudos Avanzados, in Santiago de Compostela, hosted the meeting ‘Data Science in Fundamental Physics and the bridge to industry & society’, organised by the Instituto Galego de Física de Altas Enerxías (IGFAE), a joint centre of the USC and the Xunta de Galicia. In this event, over one hundred people were able to learn how data science, a discipline that is experiencing a remarkable growth in recent years, provides a wide range of solutions to society in all kinds of daily applications.
The meeting began on Monday, with the school ‘Data Science in Fundamental Physics’, in which more than 60 students -mainly Master’s and PhD students in Physics, Mathematics or Computer Engineering- learned from the lecturers Glen Cowan (University of London) and Pietro Vischia (University of Oviedo), various keys in the handling of probability, statistics and machine learning.
A symposium was then held on Thursday and Friday, with the participation of representatives from 20 companies and institutions that use data science in their daily work, from very different perspectives and applications. The vice-rector for Digital Transformation and Innovation of the USC, Gumersindo Feijoo, opened this event on Thursday morning, accompanied by the general secretary of Industry and Energy Development of the Regional Ministry of Economy and Industry, Nicolás Vázquez, the director of the IGFAE, Carlos Salgado, and the president of the Organising Committee, Lorenzo Cazón.
During the two-day symposium, the speakers showed how the management of large amounts of information contributes to improving services to society in areas such as weather forecasting, shipbuilding or textile industry, logistics, health, genomic research, air pollution, machine learning, logistics, agriculture or farming.
In this sense, the symposium also served as a meeting point between academia and industry, in view of the growing demand for students and research staff from STEM disciplines in jobs related to data science. Bridges of collaboration were also built with the business world, with the aim of exploring joint projects and other funding opportunities.
About the IGFAE
The Instituto Galego de Física de Altas Enerxías (IGFAE) is a research centre created in 1999, with the aim of promoting and coordinating scientific and technical research in the field of high energy, astroparticle and nuclear physics. Its staff is involved in some of the most important scientific collaborations in the world. At present, its staff is composed of about 130 people.
The IGFAE’s scientific work has been recognised on two occasions with accreditation as a María de Maeztu Unit of Excellence, awarded by the State Research Agency from Spain. The centre also forms part of the Xunta de Galicia’s Network of Centres of Excellence, which accredits the quality and impact of its research.
