The Faculty of Science turns 50 years old as a space for discovery, creativity and scientific advancement. The centre was created at a time of expansion for university studies, acknowledging the role of science as a driver of social change. The Faculty’s first degree programmes and departments laid the foundations for a diverse, multidisciplinary and constantly evolving academic community.
The exhibition shows how heritage and research have gone hand in hand over the past fifty years, as the Faculty generated knowledge as well as a material, human and symbolic memory that is part of the history of the University of Alicante.
Laboratory instruments that were employed in the Faculty’s early teaching and research activity, collections, scientific preparations and learning materials, maps and publications – all of them help us understand how the study of the various scientific disciplines has evolved. This is not an exercise in nostalgia: it is the basis for everything else.
The exhibition showcases this tangible heritage while providing an overview of key events in the Faculty’s fifty-year history, with the introduction of new degree programmes to meet emerging social needs; research promotion, allowing well-established research groups at the UA to achieve national and international recognition; research collaborations and transfer, acting as a bridge between the University, companies and citizens. In other words, the Faculty is a place for all those who contribute to the advancement of science.
But this is also the 50th anniversary of a community of lecturers, researchers, technicians, students and administrative staff. The exhibition would not have been possible without the involvement of Faculty Dean Magdalena García Irles and the departments of Environmental Sciences and Natural Resources; Earth and Environmental Sciences; Optics, Pharmacology and Anatomy; Analytical Chemistry, Nutrition and Bromatology; Organic Chemistry; Physical Chemistry; Biotechnology; Marine Science and Applied Biology; Mathematics; and Applied Physics.
The exhibition makes us realise that scientific heritage is not static; in fact, it could be described as a living entity in constant dialogue with current research. The heritage passed on to us includes tools that were once state-of-the-art – likewise, the lines of research we pursue today will be our legacy to future generations.
