On June 26, 2009, to coincide with its fifth anniversary, the Ter Industrial Museum opened its new exhibition “Industrial Society. 1845-1935” completing its complement of permanent exhibition spaces. The exhibition is designed to be a continuation of "The River Factory", and expands the narrative of industrialisation from the Ter to its social aspects: the new protagonists, the new forms of everyday life linked to working at the factory, the new social groups’ class awareness, their organisational strategies, and the inevitable conflict that took various forms. Finally, the exhibition aims to show the new society’s dynamism at the cultural, economic and other levels, which was reflected, particularly, in a lot of grassroots activity. To sum up, the exhibition aims to bring to the fore Manlleu’s and, in general, Conca del Ter’s industrial culture, as this is also one of the principal characteristics of Catalonia’s culture and heritage. The exhibition stands out for its use of audiovisual strategies, allowing visits to be conducted freely and expanding the content of the texts, objects and images on display.

The exhibition was opened on May 18, International Museum Day, by Joan Manuel Tresserras, the Government of Catalonia’s Minister for Culture and the Media, in the company of the director general of Cultural Heritage, Josep M. Carreté, the president of the Catalan Audiovisual Media Corporation, Albert Sáez, the mayor of Terrassa, Pere Navarro and the director of the Science and Technology Museum of Catalonia (mNACTEC), Eusebi Casanelles. The exhibition forms part of the loudspeaker section in the Joan Julià radio collection, recently acquired by mNACTEC with the support of the Catalan Audiovisual Media Corporation (part of the autonomous government of Catalonia). The exhibition will run until May 30, 2010.

mNACTEC has one of the best loudspeaker collections in the world; it includes close to 100 original models grouped into three categories: horns or trumpets, with feet, and boxed; made in various designs and forms from a variety of materials. Loudspeakers are radio apparatus that transmit sound from radio receivers and which were built during a very short period of time, between 1920 and 1930, when radio broadcasters began to proliferate. With new designs and new technology, the radio could be listened to by a group of people so it went on to become a piece of home furnishing. This spurred manufacturers on to give the mass-produced apparatus an attractive look, very different from the scientific appearance the instrument had in its early days. After this decade the loudspeakers began to disappear, becoming integrated into a single apparatus, the cathedral-style radio.

From June 9 until November 1, 2009, the Science and Technology Museum of Catalonia (mNACTEC) is hosting two touring exhibitions; "Female Mathematicians”, from the Murcia Museum of Science and Water, and “Women of Science” created by the Catalan Women’s Institute. Both aim, through their discourse, to reveal the importance of female figures in the scientific arena.
“Female Mathematicians” reveals the contribution of women across the entire history of mathematics with the experiences of a score of women spanning the period from classical Greece to the second half of the 20th century, most of them associated with historical figures such as Pythagoras, Voltaire, Gauss and Lord Byron. The exhibition consists of a group of mathematical games, some created by the subjects of the exhibition themselves, that will test visitors’ skills in logic, geometry, combinatorial analysis, probability and calculation activities.
“Women of Science” presents the biographies of a dozen women who have connections with Catalonia and who were important in different areas of science, such as medicine, physics, botany, mathematics, architecture or biology. The exhibition highlights the obstacles they had to overcome to occupy roles traditionally filled by men.

With these two exhibitions, the Science and Technology Museum of Catalonia aligns itself with the recognition of women scientists at both national and international level.

The Science and Technology Museum of Catalonia (mNACTEC) and the museums making up its Territorial System, together with the Government of Catalonia’s Department of Education, have designed and produced the Big Bang Game. It has been created as part of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 and the project “mNACTEC as a window on CERN’s experiments”, financed by the FECYT (Ministry of Science and Innovation) since 2007.

The Big Bang Game is a unique and innovative event combining a series of new virtual games related to nine phases in the universe’s evolution, with a simultaneous presence at six "Big Bang" museums in the mNACTEC Territorial System: mNACTEC, the Cercs Mining Museum, the Espluga del Francolí Distillery Museum, the Manresa Museum of Technology, the Igualada Leather and Anoia Regional Museum, and the Torelló Woodturning Museum.

The game will begin in October. On the first day of the month, registration to take part will open and registration will close in December. However, once the classifications have been obtained, the six top Catalan institutes will also be able to take part in person in a game of clues at the closing ceremony, on January 27.

Games experts, scientists, educationalists and museologists have joined forces on the project.

This summer, from June 26 to August 26, the temporary exhibition hall at the Premià de Mar Textile Printing Museum welcomes Joaquin Budesca’s most recent work, which was inspired by the world of water: textures, colours, shapes, rings…
Sea water is the major element filling the exhibit, moving like a serpent, dancing and transporting us towards the essence of life. The artist, who comes from the Mediterranean region, has always loved the sea and searched for the secrets of existence in it. He shows us the different emotions and sensations water can communicate to us.

On May 27, at the headquarters of the Directorate General of Cultural Heritage, Josep M. Carreté the director general of Cultural Heritage at the Department of Culture and the Media, attended the signing of the partnership agreement between mNACTEC and the Aeronautic Heritage Trust of Catalonia.
The Aeronautical Museum of Catalonia will be one of the country’s major technology museums and will have a place within aeronautic museology in Catalonia. Its collection and the fact that it is located next to an aerodrome’s runways, make it highly unusual. The current collection allows several important lines of work to be carried out: its archives allow an evolving vision of 20th-century technology to be traced, from the times when the main materials were wood and canvas, up to today's aeroplanes constructed from carbon and aluminium fibres.

The Aeronautic Heritage Trust of Catalonia was founded in 1997 and is based at Sabadell airport.

The current, 2009, announcement of financial assistance from the scientific culture and innovation programme offered by the Spanish Science and Technology Foundation (FECYT), has closed with good news for mNACTEC. The projects “Connect with INNOVATION”, “Play on the Web: Big Bang and science museums” and “CERN in the mNACTEC network of science museums” have passed the foundation’s assessment process and have been awarded grants in the applicable categories. The drive and quality offered by mNACTEC and its Territorial System has been recognised.

Last May, the Bellmunt Mine Museum in Priorat opened an audiovisual exhibit allowing it to broaden its discourse and the cultural programme it offers to the Priorat region. The audiovisual exhibit is based around the participation of seven miners from the town who, through their stories, explain the different tasks they performed in the mine and tell a few anecdotes about the life of a miner. This material brings a new and different vision and expands on the mental picture of the museum’s contents offered by the guides themselves. It lasts 15 minutes and complements the guided visit. It is offered at no extra cost.

Next academic year the workshop for schools, “Come and Do Science!”, will be available at mNACTEC. The workshop aims to bring school children into contact with the scientific method on which all scientific theories are based.

The workshop’s aim is to generate a critical spirit towards science, as science uses a method based on trial and error, and all scientific knowledge is susceptible to possible experimental error.

“Come and Do Science”, therefore, brings the scientific method to school children. It does not intend to contribute any concrete, scientific knowledge but rather to present the tools necessary to evaluate any scientific activity – a method that could also help us take decisions in our own day-to-day life.

The virtual game, promoted and organised by the Directorate General of Cultural Heritage to mark International Museum Day (IMD 2009), consisted of an online competition made up of questions and answers about the museums taking part in IMD 2009. Over the course of four weeks, the contestants had to respond, to a series of questions created by the museums themselves. Three questions a day for a month, a month to play, sixty “problems” to solve… More than 500 participants, 142 people got 75% of the questions right, 15 got only one question wrong, 8 people answered all the questions correctly and an unmissable and exciting tie-break followed.

On June 26, an episode of the 9TV series “Cicerone” was filmed at the Castelló d’Empúries Ecomuseum-Flour Mill, in which the prestigious Joaquim Barraquer acted as a special guest guide in the museum.

Catalan museums are the protagonists of the programme, in which a person related to the museum, whether by profession or proximity, acts as a museum guide.

From June, the programme will be shown on 9TV, the Osona regional television channel, and later on the different local and regional television stations that make up the Catalan Local Television Network of Catalonia.