The objective of the institute is divided into three missions:
dissemination, teaching and research.
The IQCC is an active source of dissemination and communication to citizens. It does this through its website and its social networks (@IQCCUdG https://www.linkedin.com/company/iqcc-univ-girona/about/ ), where it publishes its results, awards and events (IQCC Forum, Science Slam and talks from guest scholars, for example). And also through collaboration with the Chair of Science, Culture and Digital Communication (C4D) @c4dudg, fostering communication and awareness raising of science among the public of all ages (two members of the IQCC are part of the C4D), putting on events such as Research Night, visits to schools and visits to Institutes. Moreover, every two years (Girona Seminar) the IQCC organises an international conference to attract scientists from all over the world to Girona, discuss new advances and establish possible collaborations, not to mention the young people given the opportunity, through the Young Researchers Symposium, to show their results to the more than 150 international experts in the corresponding areas of knowledge. In 2018, Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry 2016, Ben Feringa, was one of the outstanding speakers
Education is one of the other important pillars of IQCC. Upper secondary school students are hosted in the Institute under the pre-university programme (Summer School), bachelor's degree students are supervised during their bachelor's thesis (TFG), it offers its own master linked to the University of Girona Master in Advanced Catalysis and Molecular Modelling (MACMoM) @MACMoMUdG, new PhDs are trained through the UdG’s doctoral programme in chemistry, and Erasmus exchange and post-doctoral students are welcomed. All in all, this allows students to work in a research group where they can improve their research skills with high level scientific projects, thus giving them the opportunity to launch a successful career in research at both an academic and an industrial level.
The IQCC's third cornerstone, innovation, enables us to solve important challenges for society through its four lines of research, where the commitment is always to excellence:
- Computational chemistry tools
- Sustainable catalysis
- Synthetic methodologies driven by light
- Predictive chemistry in the confined space
To carry out its own projects, the IQCC collaborates with different universities from all over the world involved in different areas of knowledge. The institute also wants to transfer its new (bio)catalyser, materials and computational tools results to different industries and investors to guarantee their commercialisation. In this respect, it has six patents, Industrial doctoral degree students and different collaboration agreements with the industry. Furthermore, in the summer of 2018 a new spin-off was created, GiOxCat, (@gioxcat), which focuses on the oxidation reactions of iron and manganese, and crossed coupling reactions catalysed for copper. This entrepreneurial initiative was promoted by two IQCC researchers.