Institut de Fisica d'Altes Energies

Their core work

IFAE is a Spanish public research institute in Bellaterra (Barcelona metropolitan area) conducting fundamental research across high-energy physics, astrophysics, and nanoscience. In H2020, the institute appears exclusively as a host institution within the BIST (Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology) consortium, receiving and supervising doctoral and postdoctoral researchers funded through MSCA-COFUND fellowships. Their research environment spans physics, nanoscience, astrophysics, biomedicine, and photonics — disciplines reflected in the researchers they train and host. As a BIST founding member, IFAE provides laboratory infrastructure, scientific supervision, and institutional affiliation for European fellowship holders, functioning more as a training destination than a project initiator.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In the earlier period (PROBIST, 2017), the keyword emphasis was on postdoctoral training, biosciences, photonics, and physics — reflecting a more experienced, application-adjacent research cohort. The later project (PREBIST, 2018) shifted to predoctoral training and introduced astrophysics, nanoscience, and biomedicine, broadening the fundamental research footprint. The addition of astrophysics in the second project is the clearest signal of IFAE's own disciplinary identity becoming more visible within the shared BIST framework.

IFAE is consolidating its role as a training hub for early-career researchers at the intersection of fundamental physics, astrophysics, and nanoscience, with the doctoral pipeline (PREBIST) suggesting long-term investment in building research capacity rather than short-term project delivery.

How they like to work

IFAE participates exclusively as a third-party partner, never as a coordinator, operating entirely within the BIST consortium framework alongside four other Spanish research institutes. With only one country in their collaboration network, their partnerships are geographically concentrated in the Barcelona science cluster rather than spread across Europe. This points to an institution that is deeply integrated into a local research ecosystem and well-suited as a Spanish physics host, but unlikely to take on project management or pan-European consortium leadership roles.

IFAE has collaborated with 5 unique partners, all located in Spain, exclusively through the BIST (Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology) consortium. Their network is tightly concentrated in the Barcelona metropolitan research cluster, with no observed cross-border H2020 partnerships in this dataset.

What sets them apart

As a founding member of BIST — Spain's most prestigious cluster of independent research institutes — IFAE offers access to a high-quality physics and multidisciplinary research environment in Barcelona that is difficult to replicate elsewhere on the Iberian Peninsula. For consortium builders seeking a credible Spanish physics partner with demonstrated capacity for researcher training and supervision, IFAE brings an established institutional brand and laboratory infrastructure. Their unusual combination of astrophysics and nanoscience under one roof makes them a rare contact point for projects that need to bridge cosmological observation and nano-scale materials research.

Highlights from their portfolio

• PROBIST
  A flagship MSCA-COFUND postdoctoral programme (2017–2023) delivered through the BIST consortium, one of the most competitive researcher training vehicles in Spain, covering physics, photonics, chemistry, and biosciences.
• PREBIST
  The predoctoral counterpart to PROBIST (2018–2023), extending the BIST COFUND model to PhD candidates and adding astrophysics and nanoscience — signaling IFAE's investment in shaping the next generation of fundamental researchers.