A 2000 m2 expanse of concrete wrapped around grassy patches and a handful of trees that survive between enormous university buildings: This is the Plaça del Coneixement (“Knowledge Square”), a large, public space in the grounds of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), and now part of an educational challenge in the European project Uforest.
The researcher from McGill University, in Quebec, and CREAF associated, visited us again to talk about animal innovation from different points of view, from the ecological implications to the physiological characteristics that allow it.
A large brain increases the capacity to adjust behavior to new circumstances through learning, improving resource-gathering in a changing environment. Greater understanding of this capacity can improve predictions of what species of birds and other animals will be most vulnerable to global change.
An analysis of 1018 bird species led by CREAF and CSIC scientists suggests that innovation is not just an adaptation on it own, but emerges with the combination of certain adaptations which developed for dealing with changes in the environment, including having a large brain and being curious. Primates, cetaceans, parrots, and crows innovate because they have long lifespans and are adapted to living in changing environments.
On the 10th February 2016 the European project coordinated by CREAF WaterInnEU organize an event in the framework of the 3ª EIP on Water Conference. The event will be held in Leeuwarden (Netherlands) by Lluís Pesquer, technical of the project.
CREAF has officially entered at the National Support Group (NSG) of the Forest Technological Platform representing the Spanish forest technological sector.
MENFRI project has been featured in an interactive presentation –“How EU Research & Innovation works for a better world supporting communication activities”, prepared for EXPO 2015, showing successful EU-funded research projects.
The InForest mixed unit assembled by these two institutions has become the first academic institution in Catalonia and one of the first in the nationauthorized for drone operation.
CREAF coordinates the European project WaterInnEU, whose objective is to create a marketplace connecting results of European R&D on water with potential users. Through WaterInnEU, it is hoped that tools, protocols, and data produced by European research can be standardised, provided via open access, and that they are transferred to actors in the water management sector with decision-making power, or that they penetrate into the market in the form of products and services.
