Research is one of the main pillars supporting IBEI's academic development. The challenges of the future will mean a commitment to publicising and strengthening our research work and its impact.

Consolidating IBEI as a first-class international research centre is particularly important for a number of reasons. First, in order to establish IBEI as a leading centre for international studies, helping to connect Catalan society's interests and concerns with the current drive for globalisation and internationalisation – in this respect, having an in-depth knowledge of those aspects of the international scene that affect, or may affect, our country (and also to provide our own perspective on analyses of the international context) will become increasingly relevant. Secondly, to have an institution with an outstanding academic reputation at an international level, and achieve a position of recognised academic prestige on the international academic scene, acting as a magnet of attraction and facilitating links to the world's most prominent centres. Finally, in order to guarantee the highest standards in terms of the education of professionals and researchers in these fields, which is essential to strengthen the relationship between postgraduate education and quality research.

The growing number of researchers recruited by IBEI (in internal or external competitions), the secondment of outstanding faculty members to the Institute as researchers, and the numerous professors and scholars who have visited our institution for long periods of time have resulted in IBEI obtaining competitive research projects, increasing the institution's scientific output over the past few years. This has given a major boost to research, with the development of work programmes and the attraction of new researchers.