Last 1st of March, AlmaScience celebrated its first year of activity. It was a very challenging year and whatever one could have imagined compared to what it was indeed is beyond what it could have been foreseen.
The activities started with the first day on the job of Marta Lopes, one of our senior researchers on Paper Technology. But the pandemic and the first lock down changed the pace and the plans. The majority of the team was hired and started working during the lockdown and, without access to the labs, the team was mainly dedicated on project writing and roadmap’s definition (mainly focused on Smart packaging, Point-of-care/point of need and Security). Later in the summer, when access to laboratory was possible, the team started with hands-on work, working on our associates projects.

Also, a set of basic technologies essential to the materialization of the global R&D agenda was developed, with the aim of delivering new materials, basic technologies (building blocks), products and applications. In the difficult circumstances in which the operations have begun, the role of the team, the members of the Scientific-Technical Council and all the members of the Board of Directors in this process should be emphasized. Indeed, and without prejudice to the difficulties involved in setting up a governance model and working in a deeply collaborative way, such as the one that is at the core of Almascience, it has always been possible to generate consensus and create the conditions for the team to grow and evolve.
Here’s to an even more productive Year Two!