Eduardo Punset Casals (Barcelona, 1936) is a lawyer, economist and science commentator. He is a Law graduate from the University of Madrid and holds a Master’s Degree in Economics from the University of London. He has worked as an economics writer for the BBC, been Economics editor for the Latin American edition of the weekly magazine The Economist and economist for the IMF in the United States and Haiti.

As a specialist in subjects such as the impact of new technologies, he was a COTEC assessor, associate professor for International Marketing at ESADE, president of the Bull Technological Institute, professor of Innovation and Technology at the Instituto de Empresa (Madrid), president of Enher, vice-CEO for Economic and Finance Studies at the Banco Hispanoamericano and also coordinator of the Strategic Plan for the Information Society in Catalonia.

The programme 'REDES' on TVE, how did it all start?

“When I suggested the name REDES [NETS or NETWORKS] to TVE, they told me people would think it was a fishing programme. It took a while for me to convince them that there was no more appropriate name for a programme that aimed to reflect the inevitable fusion of knowledge — instead of its specialization — on a planetary scale. At that time only scientists had realised that this phenomenon would transform the world into a network and shrink it so drastically.

It had taken less effort to convince the TVE bosses to make a science programme. I can still recall their faces: They’d asked me to make an economics programme, and I told them I’d prefer to focus on public understanding of science.

They asked me (and a lot of people still ask) what was the motivation for choosing science. My first contact was as president of Enher. I asked the engineers what electricity was. They didn’t know what to say. They showed me some books. Shortly afterwards I became president of the Bull Technological Institute due to my interest on the impact new technologies were having on business management by multiplying products and markets. That seemed to be a crime against the sacrosanct nature of the economy: large-scale economies. Without realising it, I was spending more time with technicians and I soon discovered that the explosion of science and technology into popular culture – as well as into their lives – was on its way.
REDES was born in Madrid. During the first season we invited famous artists or business people to accompany the scientists in the studio. It made it more dynamic, but we realised we had to go deeper in our scientific knowledge if we wanted scientists themselves to realise that their research was also significant in people’s everyday lives, and that people could discover to what extent scientific method instead of dogmatism could transform their lives. Science was transforming the world.

I’m proud that REDES was a pioneer programme in shaping public understanding of science, using the first virtual television studio in Spain, through the use of 3D animation and videoconferences. At first, we had a lot of problems with cut-outs and the time lag between their discourse and speech made our guests sound like aliens.

In 1997, REDES moved to Sant Cugat, where it is still co-produced by TVE and the young group of scientists and journalists who make up the smartplanet production company. This team has proved that science and entertainment truly go together like a third-millennium horse and chariot, carrying science out to the people”.