In today’s professional sports, what is science and what is effort? Is the athlete born or made? And what about the scientist?

Physical activity and sports have been linked to science for centuries. Homer, Pindar, Plato and Aristoteles laid the foundations of what is nowadays known as Physical Education. From Ancient Greece we have reached the 20^th century and now, moving forward into the 21^st, science is increasingly present around us, including sports. In this matter, the scientific areas able to achieve the goal of improving the way we practice and enjoy sports are rapidly enlarging, although not with the same intensity at amateur level than in professional performance.

On the Friday evening of September 30^th, as part of the project European Researchers’ Night of Madrid 2016, we will focus on those areas of scientific expertise better known by the invited speakers, all of them researchers employed by one of the IMDEA research Institutes: Water, Food, Energy, Materials, Nanoscience, Networks and Software.

On that date, between 18:00 and 21:00 hours, these scientists will meet at the Residencia de Estudiantes of Madrid. They will talk not just about their favorite sports, but also about their work as well as themselves. They will discuss different issues, such as how they decided to pursue a career in science, why was Madrid their city of choice,  or why they chose to develop profesionally within an IMDEA Institute, among many others. Likewise, several other topics will be brought up, including whether their work is related directly or indirectly with sports, whether they believe that scientists and professional athletes have anything in common, or whether they consider  dangerous the current increase of technology in sports.

Juan Manuel Ortiz from IMDEA Water Institute, Ana Ramírez de Molina from IMDEA Food, Mario Martín from IMDEA Energy, Juan Pedro Fernández Blázquez from IMDEA Materials, Fabián Calleja from IMDEA Nanoscience, Domenico Giustiniano from IMDEA Networks and César Sánchez from IMDEA Software, will be individually interviewed by Manuel Carro, researcher and deputy director at IMDEA Software, in order to find out how they see the relationship between science and sports. The IMDEA Networks researcher is very fond of running and has indicated he will be speaking about localization, sensors and apps and how the use of these technologies in relation to running relate to his research work.

After a first round of questions, a “peculiar press conference” will be led by “special journalists”: students from the Retamar School, who are eager to learn about what science holds for sports in the future. This space will be followed by the third and final round of questions: all those the audience wishes to ask the invited researchers.

The European Researchers’ Night in Madrid 2016, coordinated by the madrimasd Knowledge Foundation, is an action framed under the Horizon 2020 European programme, which takes place in over 300 European cities at a time. Thirty scientific institutions based in Madrid, including the IMDEA Institutes, will be collaborating in this edition.

In addition to science and sports, there will also be live music. Songs that never fail in a big sporting event will be played, others that we all know to be part of the soundtrack of sports films, and yet more that have been chosen among millions of people as the most motivational while practicing sports.

The goal of all participants, interviews and music, is to show attendees of Sporty Science or Sports full of Science that science and sports have spent many years along the same path and are two worlds with as many differences as commonalities, worlds in which effort, the need for improvement and teamwork are essential. And if we manage to make some of the invitees change their usual working clothes for a sporting outfit, be it for running, cycling or CrossFit, … It’ll be worthwhile not to forget the camera or mobile phone at home!

OPEN ENTRY UNTIL FILLED TO CAPACITY – RESERVATION IS NOT REQUIRED

• Detailed schedule:
• 18:00 – 20:00 h. The researchers are interview by the “special journalists”.
• 20:00 – 21:00 h. The audience becomes the interviewer.
• Suitable for: all audiences.
• Date: Friday, September 30th, 2016.
• Time: 18:00 to 21:00 h.
• Place: Residencia de Estudiantes. C/ Pinar, 21-23 – 28006 Madrid.
• Organized by: IMDEA Institutes.
• Contact information:
• Telephone: 911 01 22 02 ext. 4312 / 4010 / 4012.
• Email: begona.moreno@imdea.org
• Websites: http://www.imdea.org/ and http://www.madrimasd.org/lanochedelosinvestigadores/?lan=en

COLLABORATORS              FINANCED BY                                ORGANIZERS

The project ‘European Researchers’ Night in Madrid 2016’ is financed by the European research and innovation framework programme Horizon 2020 (2014-2020), under the European Commission’s Marie Sklodowska-Curie Action – Directorate General of Education and Culture – European Commission, under the grant agreement number 633161.