BCMaterials Launches the 'Materials for Society' Initiative

In October, BCMaterials laid the first stone of the ‘Materials for Society’ initiative. This scientific, cultural and social project aims to explore the involvement of science with the most diverse aspects of society. The first event, the first stone of ‘Materials for Society’, took place with the talk/colloquium ‘‘La Física y las palabras, las dos pasiones de José María San Juan’, held in the auditorium of the Martina Casiano building, headquarters of BCMaterials.

In this meeting we discovered how the Professor of Physics at the UPV/EHU José María San Juan took a leap of faith by turning his love of reading into the dream of writing and publishing his first novel: ‘El Círculo Milenario’ (2020). This title has already become a historical fiction saga set in medieval Europe that will see its third volume published in 2026.

The talk outlined the steps and challenges that José María San Juan has gone through in the last 20 years to shape the saga ‘El Circulo Milenario’, from the first sketches of the story, through his writing methods and habits to the process of editing and publishing his work.

The ‘Materials for Society’ initiative is born with the aim of creating events that relate science with art, thinking, the progress and challenges of our time… “The goal of our scientific research at BCMaterials is to create new materials for a better life, with uses in biomedicine, environmental care, energy transition… We try to offer new materials that respond to the present and future needs of society,” says Senentxu Lanceros-Méndez, scientific director of BCMaterials. “Through this initiative, ‘Materials for Society’, we want to offer materials, this time intangible, useful for reflection and for a greater connection between science and society,” he adds.