‘Science in the Face of Natural Disasters’ is not just the title of an event at the European Researchers’ Night in Madrid 2026
October 28, 2026
Annika and Agustín, the two Josés, Cristina María, Carlos Jesús, Jimena, Milan and Mario gave us a masterclass on how science helps us deal with natural disasters. Where did they do it? When? How? Why?
Before we answer all these questions, let us introduce them to you – we don’t want to be rude, after all.
Annika Coll and Agustín de la Herrán are fire officers with the Community of Madrid. The former is in charge of ERICAM, the Community of Madrid’s Disaster Response Team; and the latter is in charge of occupational health and safety.
Mario Ballesteros (IMDEA Water), Milan Prodanovic (Energy), Jimena de la Vega (Materials), José Sánchez Costa (Nanoscience), Carlos Jesús Bernardos (Networks), Cristina María Fernández (Nutrition) and José Aguilar (Software) are IMDEA researchers working on projects which, in one way or another, are driven by a desire to help people facing disasters cope with them as effectively as possible.
If you’d like to know them in person, you can do so in this short video: https://youtu.be/k-NM0H8w9TE.
And now we’ll answer the questions. They were all at the Residencia de Estudiantes de Madrid a month ago (on Friday 25 September, to be precise) to mark the 17th European Researchers’ Night.
They did so whilst chatting about their work. Annika and Agustín explained what it means to go to a disaster site to help, when you always arrive relatively late even though you set off as soon as you receive the alert, when everyone else is trying to get away, and when everything that normally works stops working. And the researchers from IMDEA talked about some of the projects they’re working on, the results of which can help firefighters when they’re called out to an incident, or help prevent disasters or reduce their impact.
If you’d like to hear everything they said, you can watch the full video of the event via the link below: https://c.madrid/9dkah.
And that leaves us with the question: why? Because, as citizens and as researchers, at IMDEA we are fully and wholeheartedly committed to conducting science that benefits society. And what could be more beneficial than trying to prevent disasters, or reduce their impact by providing better tools to those who risk their lives every day to help us?
Let’s hope that the collaboration we’ve been able to enjoy at this year’s European Researchers’ Night will be repeated in the future, both on stage and off stage. We’ll do everything we can to make sure that happens!
