Social Activities 2019

GRSC Retreat 2019, Platja d’Aro 

Organizing committee: Silvia Galan, Caterina Coli, Guillermo Vicent, Marc A. Marti-Renom, Sergi Aranda

The 3rd Gene Regulation, Stem Cells and Cancer program’s retreat took place the 21st to 22nd February 2019 at Platja d'Aro (Hotel Cap Roig). The retreat brought together 75 members of the GRSC Program, including master and Ph.D. students, technicians, postdocs, staff scientists and group leaders. Following the mottos of the retreat, the agenda was conceived to foster the socialization between the program community (Mating), to exchange of scientific ideas and provocative opinions (Debating), to promote a relaxed environment (Gaming), and to learn from new CRG members and CRG alumni (Inspiring).

A few weeks in advance, all the participants received a questionnaire to answer (e.g., Which type of music you CAN'T stand? Which superpower would you like to have? How long should a postdoc position be? Do you put water on your toothbrush before and/or after?). The answers were used for the unsupervised clustering of the participants, and to help organizers to arrange 8 round tables with participants displaying similar social behavior. The table arrangement was followed by a 30 minutes Speed Dating and a scientific quiz. This last consisted of a scientific test about the other group mates. From each of the 8 groups, a champion came up to lead the next Debate activity after lunch. The Debate was centered around 4 questions with clear yes or no responses. The questions were about the bioethical issues of new technologies, career development, and CRG scientific excellence. Each of the two opponents had to defend antagonistic opinions, prepared in advanced with the rest of the group. Before and after the debates, all the participants of the retreat had the opportunity to express and, in some cases, change their opinion through an electronic vote.

After dinner, a Game challenged the scientific knowledge of the different groups, and lead to a disco session where the participants had the opportunity to demonstrate their non-scientific skills on the dance floor.

During the last session in the next morning, we all had the opportunity to get inspired by stimulating talks from the new PIs, Sara Sdelci (The epigenetic face of cancer metabolism) and Eva Novoa (Epitranscriptomics and RNA Dynamics), and from two CRG alumni, Lluís Armengol (qGenomics S.L.) and Lisa Johnson (Managing editor Genes journal).