Welcome to RSG-Spain!

#0-bienvenida-a-slack: In this channel you can find how the RSG Spain slack is organised.
#general: In this channel we share the voting link every month to decide the next general meeting (all RSG Spain members) and announce the most voted day and hour. Usually, the meeting takes place the last week of the month. Make sure you attend the upcoming monthly general meeting to meet all of us and present yourself!
Nodes (#barcelona-node, #canarias-node, #granada-node, #madrid-node, #valencia-node) In each channel each node coordinator shares with their members the voting link to decide the next local meeting (preferably an in-person meeting) and announce the day and place. Make sure you join the node of the region you are located and start a conversation with the node leader to tell them what you expect from RSG and where you want to be part. 🚨 In the absence of a node in your location, you can start one or join the closer one to your region. If you want but don’t know how to create a node, contact the RSG Spain president.

We share all our contributions on social media. To be updated about all our moves and support us, follow:

	@RSGSpain
	@rsg_spain
	RSG Spain
	ISCB RSG-Spain - YouTube

About RSG Spain

2.1 What is RSG Spain?

The Spanish Regional Student Group (RSG-Spain) is a satellite group of the International Society for Computational Biology Student Council (aka ISCBSC), the most prominent academic society in bioinformatics, formed by junior scientists (bachelor students, master students, Ph.D., and early postdocs) related to Bioinformatics based in Spain.

2.2 Where are we present? Local nodes

Barcelona
Madrid
Valencia
Granada
Canarias
And you? Start a new node if you are located in a different place in Spain!!

2.3 What is RSG Spain's primary mission?

Our main goal is to be present in all places in Spain where there is interest in bioinformatics to spread the word and help other people to develop their skills in this field.

To achieve this, RSG Spain members:

Organise national and international events for students to present their work to people at the same level, creating a non-stressed atmosphere in which they can be heard and ask questions and ultimately become less afraid of presenting in English.
Do talks/workshops of interest for students to develop their skills.
Promote networking outside the laboratory and research centre by collaborating with other RSGs.

2.4 RSG Spain foundation and organisation

The group was founded in 2010 by Lorena Pantano. After her, the leadership was taken by Salvador Capella. Since then, other students have taken the lead. The current members are grouped in :

Board members:

President: Adrian Garcia Moreno (Previously: Sara Monzón, Juan Rodriguez, Carla Giner, Carlota Rubio).

Secretary: Tamara Hernández Beeftink (Previously: Hanna Kranas, Marta Coronado, Carles Hernández).

Advisor: Salvador Capella (Previously: Alfonso Valencia)

Node leaders:

Barcelona node: Mónica Cabrera (Previously: Claudia Arnedo)
Canarias node: Eva Tosco (Previously:
Granada node: Marisol Benítez (Previously:
Madrid node: Miguel Juliá (Previously:
Valencia node: Irene Soler (Previously:

Committee coordinators:

Outreach: Zulema
Graphic design: Guillermo Gorines
Web: Mario Rodriguez

RSG Spain members

But the team is bigger! Meet them in the next global meeting or in-person local node meeting!

2.5 In which activities is RSG Spain involved?

Currently, the RSG Spain members organise the BioInfoPills (monthly bioinformatics seminars).

So far RSG Spain has organised:

Hackathons
Beer sessions
A series of interviews with bioinformatics.
Student Symposium (every ~1 or 2 years). Most of the previous student symposiums (apart from that of 2017 and 2021), were organised as a satellite meetings of the (Spanish) Symposiums on Bioinformatics, e.g. XIV Jornadas en Bioinformática 2018 (JBI 2018) or European Conference in Computational Biology (ECCB2022).

Check the last article we published about our last symposium: ISCB RSG-Spain and highlights from the VIII Spanish Student Symposium in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology in 2021. Inés Rivero, Guillermo Jorge Gorines-Cordero, Luis A. Rubio-Rodríguez, Irene Soler-Sáez, Carla Perpiñá-Clérigues, Adrian García, Sara Monzón, Tamara Hernández-Beeftink. bioRxiv 2022.08.19.504447; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.08.19.504447

Spanish speakers symposium: Our last international event was the SEH2Bioinfo symposium (Simposio de Estudiantes Hispanohablantes de Bioinformática y Biología Computacional), where 9 RSGs (RSG Argentina, RSG Ecuador, RSG España, RSG Venezuela, RSG Colombia, RSG Chile, RSG Peru, RSG Costa Rica, RSG México) cooperated to enhance multilingualism and linguistic diversity in science and bioinformatics.

How can you get involved in the RSG Spain tasks?

You can help continuously or punctually (in a view of a congress or event). The important thing is to attend the meetings to be up to date on the newest activities. Here you have some ideas to get involved:

Be the next Bioinfopill presenter to practise science communication presenting your research. (tip: try to improvise the talk instead of reading, explain your work as a divulgation talk…)
Join the organisation of an event (talks, seminaris, round tables, interviews, tutorials, workshops or congress) to expand your networking.
Join the social media group to set your creativity free and create content, improve designs, create videos and program the content in our channels to develop your skills as a community manager.
Create a node in your locality or become the next node coordinator by creating local activities for the bioinformatic students and grow a community to gain personal and professional experience.

Others

Our resources

We are a Student Organisation without regular funding. However, there are some ISCBSC grants that RSGs can ask for to fund some of their projects. In the last few years, we have been regularly funded by ISCBSC (~300 USD each time). They were used in the Bioinformatics Student Symposiums. We can also count on the sponsorship of different public and private organizations like INB (Instituto Nacional de Bioinformática).

Duties for the ISCBSC

Every year we need to write down (more or less by December) a renewal report in which we discuss what we did during the year and which are our next objectives. Reading the last renewal report here will give you a general idea of what we are capable of doing. Also, we made a presentation for our last National Student Symposium to encourage people like you to join our community. You can watch it here.

We’re happy to have you with us and are looking forward to seeing you at our next meetings and events!

Best wishes,