Last Friday 25th of February, the winter congress took place at the University Carlos III of Madrid as part of the SINFOTON2-CM project (S2018/NMT-4326). This congress featured scientific presentations, company round tables and dissemination activities. In the latter field, a scientific poster competition was held among the participants. The first and second prizes in this competition were awarded to Javier Pereiro García and Clara Quevedo Galán, both being PhD students at CEMDATIC. Their posters "Tunable Spiral Diffractive Axicon (SDA) based on Liquid Crystal Phase configurations" and "Dual-comb spectroscopy system based on low-cost excitation sources and software defined radio platforms" can be seen at the congress posters competition website.

This conference is part of the SINFOTON2 framework, which is a programme of R&D activities funded by the Community of Madrid and the Structural Funds of the European Union. The consortium is formed by research groups and laboratories belonging to the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, the Universidad de Alcalá de Henares, the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, and the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. In turn, a large number of companies participate as partners in this programme. This programme aims to develop instrumentation and sensor systems based on photonic technologies, as well as to promote collaboration and dissemination of scientific activity among the participants.