The pilot program provides an extract of the activities to develop the school. A period of special courses, will follow a traineeship in laboratories or companies. For the five subjects of this stage, the program has five professors with recognized expertise in their field: in optics, Steve Eikenberry (University of Florida, USA) software, Nicolas Cardiel (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), in electronic, Jose Javier Diaz (Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, IAC), in mechanics, Vicente Sanchez (IAC) and in management, Marisa Garcia (now FRACTAL SLNE).
High technology and economic investment
In the early ’90s, budgets for major instruments of nearly a million euros and were built by small teams in the universities themselves which arose the initiative. In 2007, the budget for next-generation instruments in large observatories ranged from 20 to 70 million euros due to the increasing demand for scientific instrumentation, increasingly complex, built by international teams ever wider, with greater investment and involvement of companies in the technology sector.
In this new era of large telescopes on the ground and in space, this growth is a major challenge for the scientific community and creates the need for specialized personnel in all instrumental areas, hence the initiative of the international school.
A project of life

The IScAI is an international initiative which aims to provide advanced specialized training, both theoretical and practical in all areas related to art scientific instrumentation, especially in astronomical instrumentation.
The intention is that after finishing the course, which runs until July 2008, students are ready for the following tasks: assume, among other functions, the leadership of the teams that will design and build the next generation of instruments for observatories space and ground, working as engineers Senior in the design and construction of software components, electronics and opto-mechanical managing collaboration of great international teams, and prepare to astronomers and engineers who are responsible for these instruments in order to facilitate optimum use of their abilities lifetime at different telescopes.

The practices will take place in laboratories of several academic institutions with programs of world-renowned quality instrumentation, in collaboration with high technology companies, backed by his experience in the design and construction of scientific instrumentation. This, in turn, will provide contacts for your future in the instrumental field.

This is the first school in the world and is funded by the program Consolider-Ingenio 2010 “First Science with the GTC”, the MEC. The institutions involved are the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC), Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM), University of Florida (UF) of USA, the National Institute of Astrophysics, Optics and Electronics of Mexico (INAOE), the University Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM), and GMV businesses and Fractal SLNE, both based in Madrid.

The momentum of the Spanish Astronomy

‘Consolider-Ingenio 2010′ is a global project based on the Gran Telescopio CANARIAS (GTC) that aims to promote astronomy and coordinate programs by Spanish scientists, which will result in fundamental advances in science and astronomy in particular, linking and uniting technology experts and astronomical instrumentation with researchers from various disciplines of the most cutting-edge astrophysics.
The program also participates in the training of future researchers, as well as a program of information about scientific achievements made in the project, helping to improve understanding and knowledge that society has of science through an attractive system of disclosure.
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