Month: April 2026

The University of Alicante, Vectalia and the Foundation are organising a conference to raise awareness of global desertification and the need to protect biodiversity

To mark Earth Day, the Vectalia Group and the Foundation, in collaboration with the University of Alicante, have organised a range of activities to highlight the need to preserve the planet and protect biodiversity.

The event was opened at the monolith opposite the Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities and featured a speech by Amparo Navarro, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Alicante, who highlighted the great responsibility students bear as “guardians of a sustainable campus and a better world” during her speech, in which she emphasised the campus’s firm commitment to the environment and highlighted the figure of Ramón Martín Mateo, the University’s first Vice-Chancellor and a leading authority on environmental law, as an example of the institution’s environmental legacy. She also highlighted the role of two researchers from the University and recipients of the Rei Jaume I Prizes, Javier García and Carmen Herrero, “for their work towards making the air more breathable and for reminding us that healthcare expenditure and inequality are linked to the crises arising from climate change”.

Javier Quesada, president of the Fundación Premios Rei Jaume I, expressed his satisfaction at the event and pointed out that “at a time when science was not being discussed in Spain, our foundation began awarding prizes with highly competent and objective juries, comprising mainly Nobel Laureates.  Antonio Arias, president of the Vectalia Group, highlighted his ongoing commitment to the environment and sustainability, as demonstrated by initiatives such as the renewal of the bus fleet to reduce pollution and the reforestation projects carried out in the mountains around Alicante. Finally, the Generalitat Valenciana’s Regional Minister for the Environment, Vicente Martínez Mus, pointed out that “looking after nature is looking after ourselves” and highlighted Alicante’s environmental wealth despite facing challenges such as water scarcity and desertification. He mentioned that the Comunitat Valenciana is home to exceptional biodiversity “with more than 20,000 recorded species, 338 species of vertebrates and nearly 2,900 species of native flora”, and cited the province’s water reuse programme as an example for the whole country.

Following the opening ceremony, pupils and teachers took part in a guided tour of the Geological Time Line, an educational exhibition that helps visitors understand the Earth’s evolution. They also planted native trees and aromatic plants on the campus as part of a symbolic and educational initiative aimed at promoting sustainability and respect for the natural environment.

The event moved to the Casa Sicilia Winery in Novelda, where guided tours of the estate were held, the Mediterranean garden dedicated to Doña Julia was unveiled, and the documentary “La bodega y la tierra” (The Winery and the Land) was screened for the first time, highlighting the estate’s connection with the local area and its traditions.

In the afternoon, the Altamira Hall at the UA’s University Campus hosted the scientific debate ‘Biodiversity, Desertification and Climate Change’, moderated by the journalist María Cáceres from Cadena Ser in Alicante, which focused on the environmental challenges of the 21st century. Participants included José Luis Rubio, winner of the 1996 Rei Jaume I Prize for Environmental Protection, a doctor of agricultural engineering and a scientific researcher at the CSIC; Jordi Cortina, Professor of Ecology at the University of Alicante and holder of a PhD in Biology from the University of Barcelona; and Jorge Olcina, Professor of Regional Geographical Analysis at the University of Alicante, where he teaches courses in Spatial Planning, Climatology and Natural Hazards.

If you’d like to watch the debate at the University of Alicante:

The Foundation hosted a conference on ‘Mathematics in Today’s World’, which was attended by an overwhelming number of interested participants who packed the venue. The conference coordinator, Manuel López Pellicer – a senior researcher, professor of Mathematics and member of the Royal Academy of Valencian Culture (RACV) – expressed his enthusiasm at the start and introduced the speakers, who discussed Economics, Artificial Intelligence, Data, statistics and probability, aeronautics and astronautics; there was even a final presentation by a young mathematician who focused his talk on the role of mathematics in society.

The conference was opened by the Foundation’s Executive President, Javier Quesada, who noted that “Mathematics features amongst our awards, as it is included in the Basic Research Award, which already counts several previous winners in this category”. Following his welcome address, it was the turn of the conference coordinator, who began his speech with a heartfelt tribute to two great mathematicians: Jorge Juan, from Novelda in Alicante, and Manuel Valdivia, from Martos, Jaén, in Andalusia. López Pellicer recounted how Jorge Juan solved, amongst other things, two great mysteries: the shape of the Earth and the calculation of the length of the meridian.

Carmen Herrero, winner of the 2017 Rei Jaume I Prize in Economics, spoke about mathematics in the world of economics and explained the concept of equity and “how to distribute resources when there are not enough, how to allocate indivisible goods, how to distribute the benefits of cooperation, or how to allocate seats in the Congress of Deputies, for example”. She also spoke about discrimination and stated that “disadvantage is relative, but the questions of what, how and when to compare arise, and that is one way of measuring discrimination”.

The third speaker was José Duato, another recipient of the Rei Jaume I Prize for New Technologies in 2006, who explained how Artificial Intelligence (AI) works. “A generic, adaptive algorithm, like chewing gum, enabling it to learn automatically on its own.” He went on to break down the inner workings of AI as a system that “trains neural networks, activates neurons, possesses activation functions and performs weighted sums of each input, using activation patterns”, but he also warned “of the environmental problem that may arise from facilitating the transfer of data, which consumes a great deal of energy”.

María Ángeles Gil, Professor of Statistics at the University of Oviedo, spoke of “statistics as a means of conveying information through a mathematical formula and data analysis that depends on how the data evolves; however, with the support of information technology and computing, this can be achieved today” She also explained the role of statistics “in understanding how a variable behaves within a population in order to draw conclusions.” And to move from descriptive statistics to inferential statistics, she explained that “the theory of productivity is required”.

Antonio Torres, an aeronautical engineer, spoke about a topic that is very much in the news at the moment: aeronautics and astronautics, “covering liquid-fuelled rockets and avionics instruments such as the altimeter, the anemometer, the artificial horizon and the heading indicator”, amongst other examples of the use of mathematics in his profession. He also explained “that the mathematics involved are those of Newtonian dynamics and the aerodynamic theory of velocity potential”.

And finally, the student and maths populariser Nicolás Atanes spoke about the need for maths in society and wondered why it is not as popular as football. Atanes defended its importance “for making important decisions in politics, in football itself, or even in a restaurant”. He emphasised that “mathematics has always been there, and you don’t need to be a mathematician to enjoy it”, and so he urged people to experience and enjoy it without fear.

If you’d like to see everything that was said, visit our YouTube channel: