World-class scientific infrastructures in Catalonia

An extensive network of scientific and tech centers in Barcelona-Catalonia connects our talent at all levels, while empowering numerous prestigious applied and basic research groups that make tech transfer an ongoing reality in all sectors.

Research facilities in Catalonia abound

Catalonia is home to top scientific facilities in Spain:

• The Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia, which performs ground-breaking research into catalysis and renewable energy
• The Institute of Photonic Sciences, one of the finest research institutions in the world
• The Alba Synchrotron, the largest particle accelerator and a top scientific infrastructure in Southern Europe
• Barcelona’s prestigious Biomedical Research Park
• The Barcelona Supercomputing Center, which hosts the Mare Nostrum, one of the most powerful supercomputers in Southern Europe.

The automotive industry, a significant sector of Catalonia’s industrial base, also has a state-of-the-art testing facility with the Applus+ IDIADA center, that gives support in product development activities by providing design, engineering, testing and homologation services.

Ensuring excellence in technology

Further proof of public support for innovation is the Catalan Government TECNIO program that certifies the most qualified suppliers, public or private, for both developing and providing innovative and differential technology to businesses. Today, the TECNIO network counts on 84 accredited centers.

This base of excellence is supported by leading research facilities in Catalonia such as Eurecat, offering advanced technology R&D services and transfer throughout the entire value chain in a highly multidisciplinary environment.

And, if you’ve been to the cinema recently anywhere in the world, you’ll probably have heard one of Eurecat’s success stories, the Dolby Atmos cinema sound system for cinemas, the fruit of a collaboration between IMM Sound and Eurecat.

Leitat is another leading Catalan technological institute working with companies and other entities. By means of innovation and creativity, its goal is to create economic, social and sustainable value through R&D projects and technological processes.

A coordinated network to ensure success

Behind these leading institutions are other organisms at work, ensuring that our research and tech ecosystem is optimized at all times. For example, the CERCA Institute fosters and maximizes synergies and strategic cooperation between players while improving the positioning, visibility, and impact of the research carried out.

The CSIC, or Spanish National Research Council, Europe’s third largest public research institution, also has 21 centers in Catalonia, and whose main objective is to develop and promote research that will help bring about scientific and technological progress.

A bottom-up innovation culture

Research and investigation permeate throughout all Catalan knowledge centers. For example, 8 hospital institutions and 36 university research institutes actively perform research. In fact, thanks to this research at this level, your cellphone probably contains some Catalan university-developed technology, with Fractus, a spin-off from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC), that got rid of exterior cellphone antennas to replace them with geometry-based multi-band and miniature ones.