16/01/2025 – El equipo de coordinación de la participación nacional en el proyecto SKA asistió el pasado mes de diciembre a la II Jornada de Grandes Infraestructuras de Investigación del CSIC y al Big Science Industry Forum Spain (BSIFS).
El equipo de coordinación de la participación española en el proyecto SKA (SKA-Spain) ha asistido a dos foros nacionales relacionados con las grandes infraestructuras científicas, reforzando el papel clave de la comunidad científica e industria nacional en ámbitos como la gestión de datos científicos, la Ciencia Abierta, la transformación digital y la inteligencia artificial.
En el marco de la II Jornada de Grandes Infraestructuras de Investigación del CSIC, celebrada el 2 de diciembre, Julián Garrido del Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC) y co-IP de la coordinación de SKA-Spain, participó en la mesa redonda “EOSC en el CSIC. Gestión de datos en las Grandes Infraestructuras de Investigación: estrategia, impacto y ciencia abierta”. Durante su intervención, Garrido presentó el Observatorio del SKA (SKAO) como un ejemplo de infraestructura que favorecerá la Ciencia Abierta, destacando los retos asociados a la gestión de volúmenes masivos de datos (del orden de cientos de petabytes anuales). Igualmente, remarcó el papel de la red internacional de SKA Regional Centres (SRCNet) como elemento clave para garantizar el acceso, el procesamiento y la reutilización científica de dichos datos.
El debate puso de relieve la necesidad de estrategias institucionales sólidas y financiación sostenida para la gestión de datos, así como la importancia de integrar los principios FAIR y la Ciencia Abierta como principio fundacional de las infraestructuras científicas. En este contexto, se subrayó el esfuerzo realizado desde España para incorporar la reproducibilidad científica como métrica de éxito en el SKA y para asegurar que, tras los periodos de embargo, los datos se integren en archivos públicos accesibles a la comunidad. Asimismo, se discutió el papel potencial de la European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) como marco de referencia para reducir barreras tecnológicas para investigadores y gestores de datos.
De izquierda a derecha: Carmen García (IFIC-CSIC – Presidenta de la Comisión asesora ICTS-IEI del CSIC y moderadora de la mesa); Isabel Campos (IFCA-CSIC – Vocal de DATOS de la Comisión asesora ICTS-IEI del CSIC); Julián Garrido (IAA-CSIC – co-IP de la coordinación española en SKA); Ramón Carbonell (GEO3BCN-CSIC – vicepresidente de la Comisión asesora ICTS-IEI del CSIC); y Javier Bustamante (EBD-CSIC – vicedirector de la ICTS-DOÑANA).
Por otro lado, el proyecto SKA estuvo presente en el Big Science Industry Forum Spain (BSIFS), celebrado los días 3 y 4 de diciembre de 2025. La asistencia de las empresas españolas participantes en el proyecto y del equipo de coordinación de SKA-Spain permitió aportar su experiencia en infraestructuras científicas de referencia como el SKAO, especialmente en aspectos ligados a la gestión de datos a gran escala, ciencia abierta y sostenibilidad. Concretamente, la coordinadora de SKA-Spain, Lourdes Verdes-Montenegro (IAA-CSIC), formó parte de la mesa redonda “Transformación digital e Inteligencia Artificial”. En esta mesa, centrada en la interacción entre ciencia e industria, se abordó el impacto de la inteligencia artificial como motor de cambio tecnológico, productivo y social. Durante su intervención, Verdes-Montenegro destacó el papel del proyecto TED4SKA en el desarrollo de soluciones basadas en inteligencia artificial para optimizar la sostenibilidad energética y la gestión de datos del nodo español de la SRCNet (espSRC), subrayando la necesidad de garantizar la reproducibilidad y fiabilidad de los resultados científicos en un entorno de creciente automatización.
De izquierda a derecha: José Luis Dessy (Director de la Fundación AI Granada); Lourdes Verdes-Montenegro (Profesora de Investigación del IAA-CSIC y Coordinadora de la participación española en el proyecto SKA); Juan Alberto Vecino (Director de HI Iberia); María Ortiz (Responsable de Inteligencia Artificial de F4E); Santiago Ferrer (Director de Programas Industriales 5.0 de CT Ingenieros); y Eric Fernandez (Director General de Ineustar y moderador de la sesión).
El BSIFS sirvió también para poner de manifiesto la importancia de reforzar la conexión entre grandes infraestructuras científicas y el tejido industrial nacional, identificando la necesidad de talento especializado, de cooperación público-privada y de marcos regulatorios que favorezcan una adopción responsable de la inteligencia artificial. <<La organización de este tipo de actividades contribuye a establecer diálogos de gran interés para la comunidad científica, la industria de la ciencia y la sociedad>>, señala Verdes-Montenegro. En este contexto, los organizadores del evento facilitaron reuniones entre los participantes. El equipo de coordinación mantuvo reuniones formales con 7 empresas que expresaron interés en el SKAO y la SRCNet sobre las posibles futuras oportunidades de participación industrial.
29/05/2025 – The SKAO, a balcony to the Universe with its heart on Earth 05/29/2025 – SKAO, a balcony to the Universe with its heart on Earth, is the title of a public talk in the Lucas Lara lecture series, which will take place on Thursday, May 29 at 7:00 p.m. in the IAA-CSIC Auditorium, Granada, Spain.
The speaker is Lourdes Verdes-Montenegro, who has coordinated Spanish participation in this project since its inception. This is a great opportunity to learn how a large astronomical observational facility, with unprecedented sensitivity and complexity, is conceived, built, and organised. Also, to learn about the construction of these telescopes in remote regions of South Africa and Australia.
In this talk, we'll learn about the latest developments and Spain's participation in the project. We'll also learn about the status of the SKA International Network of Regional Centres, for which one node is being developed in Spain. These centres are essential for the community to access the vast amount of data the telescopes will generate and to benefit from tools, technical support, and specialised training.
From this point on, we will open a window to the lesser-known dimensions of SKAO: the challenge of interference caused by mega-satellite constellations, cooperation with Africa and Indigenous tribes in Australia, Open Science, respect for the environment, and the creation of opportunities beyond science. This is an invitation to observe the Universe with the most advanced technology... and with your feet firmly on the ground.
02/08/2024 – More than 630 participants gathered in Granada to discuss the latest developments in astronomy. The SKA project was extensively discussed, with key presentations on its technological and scientific capabilities, underlining the importance of Spanish collaboration in this global research infrastructure.
From July 15th to 19th, the XVI Scientific Meeting of the Spanish Astronomical Society (SEA, for its acronym in Spanish) was held in Granada, with a record attendance of over 630 participants and more than 400 scientific talks. During this meeting, the latest scientific and technological advances in astronomy and the Spanish participation in major projects and research infrastructures were shared. Among these, the SKA project played a prominent role, as it was the subject of the inaugural plenary lecture, a special session, and also featured in another plenary and talks in various parallel sessions.
Inaugural plenary lecture “Science with SKA: the mother of all radio telescopes” by Miguel Pérez-Torres (IAA-CSIC)
In the inaugural talk, Miguel Pérez-Torres (IAA-CSIC) discussed the capabilities of SKAO telescopes and the scientific research that can be conducted with them, encouraging all attendees to become part of the SKA community by participating in the Science Working Groups. This talk can be watched in full on the SEA's YouTube channel (link). The special session on SKA focused on the latest developments at the SKA Observatory and its international network of Regional Centres (SRCNet), addressing topics such as: the timeline for the construction of SKAO telescopes, updates on scientific cases, the SKA Science Conference to be held in June 2025, the tools already available to the community, the services offered by the Spanish prototype of SKA Regional Centre at IAA-CSIC (espSRC), and the launch of the first functional version of the SRCNet in early 2025.
Julián Garrido (IAA-CSIC) and Javier Moldón (IAA-CSIC) during the special session on SKA
The plenary talks on the second day included a presentation by Vanessa Graber (University of Hertfordshire). In this talk, she summarised the work she conducted at the Institute of Space Sciences (ICE-CSIC) on pulsars and long-period radio transients, highlighting observations made with the Murchison Widefield Array, one of the SKAO precursors in Australia. This talk can also be viewed on the SEA's YouTube channel (link).
In the parallel sessions, the SKA project was also discussed from the scientific, technological and science communication aspects. The invited talks by Susana Sánchez (IAA-CSIC) and Lourdes Verdes-Montenegro (IAA-CSIC) were particularly focused on the SKA project. Susana Sánchez discussed Spain's contribution to SRCNet and the TED4SKA project, which aims to reduce the energy consumption of SKA Regional Centres. Lourdes Verdes-Montenegro provided a review of the study of galaxies and their environments using HI observations with SKA precursors and pathfinders. También se presentaron otras tres charlas sobre observaciones con precursores y pathfinders de SKA: Jacobo Asorey (UCM) habló sobre Cosmología con surveys de ASKAP, Roger Ianjamasimanana (IAA-CSIC) presentó un trabajo sobre el gas en grupos compactos de Hickson realizado con observaciones de MeerKAT y Shane O’Sullivan (UCM) sobre observaciones del medio intergaláctico magnetizado realizadas en los surveys LOTSS de LOFAR y POSSUM de ASKAP. In the instrumentation and supercomputing session, Ixaka Labadie (IAA-CSIC) presented his research on remote and interactive visualisation of spectral data cubes implemented in the espSRC, which is already being applied to MeerKAT data, a SKA precursor telescope. In a different area, Marcos Villaverde (IAA-CSIC) spoke in the session dedicated to education, outreach, and heritage about the outreach initiatives carried out by SKAO and the role of Open Science in dissemination. It is also worth mentioning a poster by David Alonso-López (UCM) on work conducted within the POSSUM-ASKAP collaboration concerning the magnetised gas in the Shapley supercluster
In addition to all this, SKAO and its telescopes were featured in other talks as a reference for the future. All of this reflects the Spanish community's interest in the SKA project and its science.
From left to right and from top to bottom: Shane O’Sullivan (UCM), Lourdes Verdes-Montenegro (IAA-CSIC), Vanessa Graber (University of Hertfordshire / ICE-CSIC), Ixaka Labadie (IAA-CSIC), Susana Sánchez (IAA-CSIC), Marcos Villaverde (IAA-CSIC) and Roger Ianjamasimanana (IAA-CSIC)
22/06/2023 – The emerging era of Big Data is demanding a transformation in the way science is done via a growing push to make scientific research more accessible, a movement known as 'Open Science'. To explore what this means in practice for researchers, the first SKA Open Science School took place in Granada, Spain, from 8-10 May 2023, bringing together 80 participants from 14 countries.
The IAA-CSIC Severo Ochoa Open Science school at the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia was organised as a fully hybrid meeting,
with around 50% of its participants attending online. Credit: IAA-CSIC
The hybrid school was endorsed by the SKA Regional Centre partner training programme and co-organised with the SKAO under the IAA-CSIC Severo Ochoa Programme.
Participants ranged from graduate students looking for tips on making their thesis work reproducible (making tools and techniques public so that others – and even the original researchers themselves – can achieve the same results later), to the already Open Science-savvy wanting to learn practical tools. Instructors discussed transitions in science practices with accompanying challenges, and presented practical solutions, including hands-on demos. They covered topics on how to make projects/code portable throughout new versions of software, how to best use containers and science platforms, virtual observatories, setting up citizen science projects, licenses, and more.
Discussions continued between sessions on how to change habits that give quick, publishable results (the “publish-or-perish” mentality) and instead invest the time needed for long-term open and reproducible science, including how Open Science work can be appreciated by employers. As Prof. Eva Mendez of Charles III University of Madrid (UC3M) asked: “Are we prepared for a new research evaluation?”
SKAO Scientist Dr Philippa Hartley shared the new SKAO statement on Open Science, including its mission and what Open Science will do for the SKA, and the IAA’s Dr Lourdes Verdes-Montenegro, coordinator of the Spanish participation in the SKA, noted that “large scientific infrastructures have an ethical role and a practical need in Open Science”.
Sessions from the Open Science school are publicly available
on the school webpage.
05/04/2023 – The Spanish contribution to the project, which amounts to 41.4 million euros until 2030, will allow Spanish companies to participate in contracts of high technological value for the construction of this scientific infrastructure. The Institute de Astrophysics de Andalusia (IAA-CSIC) is responsible for the technical coordination of the Spanish participation in the project.
The Council of Ministers has approved this Tuesday the accession of Spain as a full member of the SKA Observatory (SKAO), an intergovernmental organisation that is building two complementary world-class radiotelescopes that will constitute one of the largest and most ambitious scientific infrastructures on the planet.
The initial construction phase of the SKAO telescopes, covering the period from 2021 to 2030, will cost a total of 2,022 million euros. Spain will contribute a total of 41.4 million euros to this phase of the project, of which 7.9 million euros have already been paid between 2021 and 2022 (5.1 million euros from the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan). In 2023, €2.5 million from the national budget is foreseen.
The formalisation of Spain's incorporation into the SKAO as a full member now allows Spanish companies to participate in the contracts for the construction of the two radiotelescopes, thanks to the principle of return that applies in this international organisation.
The participation of Spanish companies in at least five SKAO construction contracts is currently guaranteed. Spain will be responsible, for example, for the manufacture of the sub-reflectors (secondary mirrors) for the parabolic antennas and the production of the equipment for the time synchronisation of the radiotelescope receivers.
Spanish industry will thus increase its expertise in the many cutting-edge technologies and big data techniques that are indispensable for the operation of the SKAO and that are being developed specifically for this unique project.
Moreover, thanks to this adhesion, Spanish scientists will be able to carry out pioneering radio astronomical observations at the front line, which are destined to lead to transformational discoveries in the study of the universe.
"We are really grateful for the support of our SKAO colleagues over the years. It has been amazing to have reached this point, and we have thoroughly enjoyed the journey to get there working together with the Ministry, the CDTI and the astronomy community. Now we can move forward with even more challenging and exciting activities as part of the SKAO", declare Lourdes Verdes-Montenegro (IAA-CSIC), coordinator of the Spanish participation in SKAO.
SKAO telescopes: two innovative and revolutionary radiotelescopes
During the current construction phase, the member states of this intergovernmental organisation will agree on the contributions and the construction schedule for the next phase of the project.
The SKAO radio telescopes will consist of two arrays of hundreds of thousands of antennas of different types. The first array, dedicated to low-frequency antennas, will be located in the Murchison district of Western Australia, while the second, dedicated to medium and high frequencies, will be distributed in the Karoo Desert of South Africa.
When completed, the SKAO telescopes will be a colossal observatory: they will have tens of times the sensitivity, and thousands of times the observing speed, of the best radio astronomical facilities available today, and their performance will not be surpassed by any other radiotelescope for decades.
In addition to the scientific and technological challenges it will overcome, SKAO also faces an organisational and management challenge that is being addressed through close intergovernmental cooperation on a global scale, cooperation that will serve as a model for other large multinational projects.
Spain's participation in the SKA
Spain has been working on the design and preparatory tasks of the project since the 1990s together with the states that have already ratified the agreement establishing the SKAO - Australia, China, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, the United Kingdom, South Africa and Switzerland - and those that are in the process of ratifying it - Germany, Canada, South Korea, France, India, Japan and Sweden.
The technical coordination of the Spanish participation in the project is the responsibility of the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC), which belongs to the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (Spanish National Research Council), an agency of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, whose main role is to organise the national scientific community for its participation in the project.
There are currently astrophysicists from Spain involved in almost all the SKA science working teams, as well as in other groups, such as the energy supply options or the coordination of the regional centres.
25/05/2022 – The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will enable progress to be made in the search for signs of life in the galaxy and in the observation of pulsars, black holes and gravitational waves. The technical coordination of the Spanish participation in the project is carried out by the Institute de Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC)
The Council of Ministers has approved this Tuesday the agreements by which the Ministry of Science and Innovation will allocate 2.5 million euros to the international radiotelescope Square Kilometre Array (SKA), of which 0.7 million euros will come from the European funds of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan and will be devoted to the development of its instrumentation.
The SKA radiotelescope will consist of hundreds of thousands of antennas of different types, spread over different locations, ranging from the Karoo Desert in South Africa, which will host the core of high and medium frequency dishes, to the Murchison Shire in Australia, which will host the low frequency antennas.
The SKA will be thousands of times faster at observing the sky than the best radioastronomy facilities today and will enable astronomers to make sky observations in great detail, exceeding the image resolution quality of the Hubble space telescope by several orders of magnitude.
In this way, the SKA radio telescope will make ground-breaking contributions to astrophysics, astrobiology, fundamental physics, geophysics and geodesy. Among other functionalities, it will enable progress to be made in the search for signs of life in the galaxy and the observation of pulsars, black holes and gravitational waves.
Spain's participation in SKA
Our country has been participating in SKA since 2011 and has expressed its interest in participating as a full partner in the SKA observatory which, under the legal form of an international body, will be the entity responsible for carrying out the construction of the world's largest radiotelescope.
Part of the amount approved on Tuesday will be recognised by SKA as part of the agreed contribution with which Spain will become a full member.
The technical coordination of the Spanish participation in the project is the responsibility of the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC), which belongs to the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (Spanish National Research Council), an agency of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, whose main role is to organise the national scientific community for its participation in the project.
At present, astrophysicists from Spain are involved in almost all the science working teams of the SKA, as well as in other groups, such as the energy supply options or the coordination of the regional centres. In addition, a representative of the CDTI has been appointed to encourage Spanish industrial participation in SKA developments.
