The Science Park received nearly 900,000 visits in 2023, the highest number in its history – Granada

The Granada Science Park received nearly 900,000 visits in 2023, the highest number in its entire history, Patricia del Pozo, Minister of Education and Vocational Training Development, reported on Thursday in the Parliament of Andalusia.

With attendance recorded last year, the Granada venue has exceeded 14 million visits (14,811,452) since it opened its doors in May 1995, the council reported in a press release after del Pozo's appearance at the Parliamentary Committee for the Development of Vocational Education and Training. Based on the proposal of the Socialist Parliamentary Group.

In more detail, Patricia del Pozo indicated that more than 230,000 people passed through the Biodome in 2023, and it is one of the spaces preferred by citizens. For their part, the other two exhibitions, the Museum and the Planetarium, saw an increase in the number of visits compared to the previous year by twelve and eight percent, respectively, while the Cultural Exhibition increased the number of its users by thirty-one percent.

The record number of visitors depends, in the words of the advisor, on “the role of national and international reference in scientific education and dissemination of the Science Park.” In this sense, he highlighted the great interest aroused by the exhibitions that opened last year, which are closely related to the current reality. From mental health to healthy and sustainable eating, through the energy transition, water extraction, holography and climate change, among other topics.

In parallel, the alliance with the Technisches Museum in Vienna (Austria) and the DASA Work Museum in Dortmund (Germany) has been strengthened, which will be extended for another three years, while activities such as the celebration of the final have been organised. ESA CanSAT Challenge 2023, the 9th Social Communication of Science Conference, the Interscholastic Chess Championship in Granada, and the Reinhard Genzel Conference, Nobel Prize in Physics 2020.

Councilor del Pozo also listed, in the context of the EDC, “important progress made in the management of the consortium”, such that “the average payment period for suppliers has been improved, leaving it at the end-2023 level of 11.15 days, as in budget implementation, It reached 97.80 percent last year.

Group interventions

For his part, socialist parliamentarian Gerardo Sanchez alluded to the “success story” of what was in its beginnings, stressing that it is “a reference for science parks all over Europe” and which, as he put it, “dark clouds” are gathering today.

Then, in a press release, he asked the Andalusian government for “more ambition and greater commitment” to the Science Park, which at this time faces “major challenges, especially in the field of budget”, and asked for the adaptation of the budget and the financial contribution of the sponsors in meeting the current needs of the museum.

It also disgraced the government of Juanma Moreno and the Popular Party because it “did not convene its board of directors even once in the entire year of 2023. A sign of its neglect and lack of interest in this museum, which means that it has not yet been approved,” according to the accounts for the fiscal year 2019.

PP Member of Parliament Mariano García alluded to the positive statements raised by del Pozo although opposition groups, especially those on the left, as this regional MP pointed out, “came to talk about his book.”

In this context, Alejandra Duran, from Port Andalusia, expressed her regret that the board of directors might allow the museum that was a reference in the province to “die slowly.” Science Park as a “meeting point” and a “cultural, scientific and media reference.”