ICIQ group leader Feliu Maseras has participated as a lecturer in a course for chemical industry named Digital Immersion in Industry 4.0  organised by EOI Business School (Escuela de Organización Industrial) in collaboration with FEIQUE (Federación Empresarial de la Industria Química Española). This is an intensive course in digital technologies for the chemical industrial sector, aimed at industry workers who are strategically digitalizing their productive models to be more competitive. “It is important that computational chemistry is present in this course. Our participation is also a recognition to the significant role of ICIQ in this field,” explains Maseras.

During the on-line training, Maseras has highlighted the potential of computational chemistry for the industrial sector with various examples. The computational approach can improve chemical research by assisting a more efficient drug development, a cleaner heterogeneous catalysis and a more sustainable fine chemistry. The scientist has also introduced the audience to ioChem-BD, a digital repository developed at ICIQ and URV aimed to manage, store and publish Computational Chemistry Datasets.

Maseras has been invited to participate in the Industrial Digital Immersion Programme COVID-19 by Cristina González, FEIQUE and SusChem’s innovation director, who believes “the industrial chemical sector still needs to embrace chemical computation as a stepping stone to enhance its innovation potential”.

The course is part of the extraordinary measures that EOI and the General Secretary of Industry and SMEs (Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism) are carrying out with co-financing from the European Social Fund, to counteract the effects of COVID-19; in this case by accelerating the digital transformation of organizations.