SPAOM 2025: Strengthening the Iberian Imaging Community through Collaboration and FAIR Practices

From November 5–7, 2025, the city of Braga, Portugal, became a vibrant hub of scientific exchange as more than 200 researchers, imaging specialists, and industry leaders gathered for the 9th edition of SPAOM – the Spanish & Portuguese Advanced Optical Microscopy Meeting.
Jointly organized by the Portuguese Platform of BioImaging (PPBI) and the Red Española de Microscopía Óptica Avanzada (REMOA), SPAOM 2025 showcased the best of Iberian microscopy while reinforcing connections across the European imaging community. Throughout the event, Euro-BioImaging played a highly visible and strategic role, contributing to discussions on open science, impact assessment, and the future of imaging research infrastructures.

Leading with FAIRness: A Euro-BioImaging Satellite Workshop

Before the SPAOM 2025 official opening. Euro-BioImaging, in collaboration with Telmo Pereira and Luisa Cortes from the PPBI Node,  organised a hybrid satellite workshop on November 4 titled “FAIR 101 - From Principles to Practice” which included tailored activities for facility managers. Led by Isabel Kemmer (online) and Daniela Aviles (on-site), the session drew strong engagement from facility managers and imaging experts, both on-site and virtual, eager to refine their understanding and application of FAIR data principles. 

Through lectures, practical exercises and collaborative discussions, participants explored how imaging facilities can embrace data stewardship and (meta)data management, ensuring that the valuable datasets generated through advanced microscopy remain accessible and reproducible to the global scientific community.

Measuring What Matters: The Impact of Core Facilities

Continuing this theme, Euro-BioImaging’s Daniela Aviles (Bio-Hub/EMBL) teamed up with Mariana Carvalho (INL/PPBI) to lead the Community Workshop “Measuring the Impact of an Imaging Core Facility.” Inspired by the ongoing work of the Global BioImaging Working Group on the Impact of Imaging Research Infrastructures, the session encouraged participants to reflect on how imaging facilities can demonstrate their scientific and societal value.

“The impact of imaging infrastructures is not only measured in publications or technologies developed, but in how they enable collaboration, training, and new ways of doing science.”

-- Daniela Aviles-Huerta, Euro-BioImaging

The lively discussion addressed key aspects such as performance evaluation, user engagement, and benchmarking—reinforcing the importance of impact assessment as a driver of sustainability for research infrastructures.

Scientific Ambassadors in the Spotlight

Euro-BioImaging was also proudly represented by two of its Scientific Ambassadors, who shared their cutting-edge research with the SPAOM community:

• Vanessa Coelho-Santos (University of Coimbra, Portugal) presented “A Window with a View to Neurogliovascular Unit Development” during the Neuroscience session, highlighting innovative approaches to understanding brain microenvironments.
• Estibaliz Gómez de Mariscal (ITQB NOVA, NOVA University of Lisbon, Portugal) delivered the invited talk “Harnessing AI Towards the Limits of Live-Cell Microscopy”, exploring how artificial intelligence is reshaping real-time biological imaging.

Their contributions reflected Euro-BioImaging’s mission to foster excellence in imaging science and to amplify the voices of talented researchers across Europe.

Innovation and Collaboration Across the Microscopy Landscape

The wider SPAOM 2025 program featured six scientific focus sessions, ten industry workshops, and six community workshops, covering a broad range of topics—from advanced neurophotonics and quantum bioimaging to AI-driven image analysis and 3D models of health and disease.
Keynote speakers included renowned experts such as Valentina Emiliani (Sorbonne Université), Warwick Bowen (University of Queensland), Vasilis Ntziachristos (Helmholtz Munich), and Michael Krieg (ICFO).
In addition to world-class science, the event fostered vital discussion on careers in microscopy, networking between facilities, and industry–academia collaboration, with major companies like Evident, ZEISS, Leica, Telstar–Bruker, Palex, and Miltenyi Biotec showcasing the latest technologies driving discovery.

A Shared Vision for the Future of Imaging

With its unique blend of scientific depth, technological innovation, and community spirit, SPAOM 2025 reaffirmed the strength and cohesion of the Iberian microscopy community.
For Euro-BioImaging, the meeting was an opportunity to support open science, empower imaging facilities, and promote collaboration across borders—core values that continue to shape the European imaging landscape.

As Daniela Aviles noted during the workshops, “The impact of imaging infrastructures is not only measured in publications or technologies developed, but in how they enable collaboration, training, and new ways of doing science.”

SPAOM 2025 clearly embodied that spirit—a celebration of shared knowledge, innovation, and community that moves bioimaging forward.