30 November 2023

About

CARLA, the Photonics Careers event, originated as a 3-year H2020 EU-funded project. It has now evolved to continue its mission and objectives. CARLA has developed a model for pan-European Photonics Career Camps of Excellence, aimed at encouraging university students and early-stage researchers to pursue careers in photonics. Throughout its project duration, CARLA collaborated with 100 stakeholders from various fields, including industry, academia, innovation, and entrepreneurship, to design these camps, putting special emphasis on empowering gender diversity. During the EU funded project, both in-person and virtual camps were organized in 10 different countries. Since then, other camps have been organised brining sustainability to the project. Furthermore, the CARLA consortium has recently gained a new EU project to bring the CARLA approach to the next level.

ICFO is a CERCA research centre member of the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, founded in 2002 by the Government of Catalonia and the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya · Barcelona Tech, both of which are members of ICFO’s board of trustees along with the Cellex and Mir-Puig Foundations, philanthropic entities that have played a critical role in the advancement of the institute. Located in the Mediterranean Technology Park in the metropolitan area of Barcelona, the institute currently hosts 500 people, organized in 25 research teams that use 80 state-of-the-art research laboratories. Research lines encompass diverse areas in which photonics plays a decisive role, with an emphasis on basic and applied themes relevant to medicine and biology, advanced imaging techniques, information technologies, a range of environmental sensors, tunable and ultra-fast lasers, quantum science and technologies, photovoltaics and the properties and applications of nano and quantum materials such as graphene, among others. In addition to three consecutive accreditations of the Severo Ochoa national program for top research excellence, ICFOnians have been awarded 16 elite ICREA Professorships as well as 42 European Research Council grants. ICFO is very proactive in fostering entrepreneurial activities, spin-off creation, and creating collaborations and links between industry and ICFO researchers. To date, ICFO has helped create 11 start-up companies.