The educational Tandem, formed by the Bellvitge Institute and IDIBELL has closed the 2019-2020 academic year launching a challenge for 3rd ESO students: researching the new coronavirus. The emergence of COVID-19 and the situation of confinement motivated a project that aimed to promote knowledge and research on different aspects related to viruses, the human body and the social impact of the health crisis. The activities have been carried out, during the months of confinement, through an interactive digital platform that has facilitated the research and collection of information by the students, until the final phase of the project: preparing the script of an informative video, record it, make it and spread it. The work, with a globalizing will, has integrated knowledge from various educational fields: biology, technology, physics and chemistry, mathematics, social sciences and languages. And it has given the starting gun to URIB (the Research Unit of the Bellvitge Institute), which from the next academic year will display a broader framework of activities.

Throughout the course that is now ending, the Tandem has carried out other activities: the active participation of students in the ‘Sinergia’ open day, where they exhibited works of art and science and the edited issues of the Tandem magazine ‘Life & Science’; attendance at the theatrical performance ‘Obra de Cajal’, which took place at the Bellvitge Campus of the University of Barcelona; the report about women in science, from the sLHam organized by IDIBELL; or the exhibition of plastic works on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the institution. As it has been doing for the last years, IDIBELL continues to be involved in the co-tutoring of Baccalaureate research work, this year the Hereditary Cancer group has welcomed a student from the Institute. The health crisis caused by COVID-19 has forced the cancellation of activities, such as the UniStemDay, which will resume throughout the following academic year.

Starting in September, a new educational project will be launched: the creation of laboratory practices inspired by IDIBELL’s research areas. It will aim at students of the last ESO courses, and the students of artistic baccalaureate will also participate, making the videos that will accompany them.

All the Tadem activities are reported in the magazine “Life & Science”, the third issue has been published this end of course. This issue contains a special on COVID-19, in addition to reports from other scientific fields, a section dedicated to letters and science, the chronicles of all Tandem activities and, among others, a compilation of plastic works on the 15 years of IDIBELL.