About ICN

The Catalan Institute of Nanotechnology (ICN) is a non-profit international research institute located in Barcelona, Spain. It was created in July 2003 by the Ministry of Universities, Research and Information Society of the Catalan Government (DIUE) and the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB).

ICN’s mission is to achieve the highest level of scientific and technological excellence in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology.

To this end, research at ICN encompasses:

• Basic science - primarily via European and national collaborative projects, including frontier areas.
• Technology - in areas of in-house expertise and in conjunction with industry.

Therefore, ICN interacts closely with universities, research centres, technology centres, private sector R&D, the scientific community and society in general.

ICN's charter mandates that the Institute engage in:

• the research of new properties of matter that arise from its state of aggregation at the nanometric scale,
• the development of nanoproduction methods, synthesis, analysis, and manipulation of aggregates and structures of nanometric dimension,
• the development of techniques for characterizing and manipulating nanostructures,
• the promotion of collaboration among scientists from diverse areas of specialization (physics, chemistry, biology, engineering) with the purpose of integrating their knowledge into this new area of research,
• the training of researchers in the field of nanotechnology,
• any other objectives related to research in the area of nanoscience and nanotechnology.