Javier García, president-elect of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Alicante and co-founder of the Rive Technology company, will give a lecture on March 25 at 11:00 a.m. on the occasion of the 125thanniversary of the studies in Chemistry on the need to adapt education to current advances in Chemistry. The session will be opened online via Teams at the link https://go.uv.es/adrquimica/Javier_Garcia.
In the lecture“The future of the chemical profession: Educating for a new time”, Javier García criticises the current education model in Chemistry and exposes the need to adapt it to the changes produced in the field. To do this, he will draw on his own experience as the creator of the Rive Technology startup, with which he won the Best Entrepreneur Award in the US in the chemical sector.
“Science has advanced in such a way that today many chemical procedures have already been fully automated, chemical industrial processing plants are digitised, and artificial intelligence has enabled the discovery of new materials and drugs. However, education does not it has evolved at the same rate and that is why the current teaching model is stagnant”, highlights Javier García.
The objective of this conference is to encourage, on the one hand, students to adapt to the opportunities that arise and improve their personal training and, on the other, the teaching staff to update the educational offer. Javier García will also explain the initiatives that IUPAC has established to promote safety, sustainability and entrepreneurship for new generations of chemical professionals.
The University of Valencia has celebrated in 2020 the 125thanniversary of Chemistry studies in Valencia, with a program of activities that has included exhibitions and conferences with which the cultural heritage linked to these studies has been recovered. It was in 1895, by Royal Decree of August 2, when the Valencia Faculty of Sciences was created with the Bachelor’s Degree in Physical-Chemical Sciences. Later the sections of Physical Sciences, Mathematical Sciences and Biological Sciences were added. Currently, the Faculty offers the Degree in Chemistry and the double degree in Physics and Chemistry.