New Publication
IFAE COVID-19 Group Publishes Final Study on Catalonia’s Pandemic Response in Scientific Reports
January 7, 2025
IFAEThe IFAE COVID-19 group has published the final results of an I+D+I project funded under the AGAUR PANDÈMIES-2020 programme, which developed a powerful stochastic simulation framework to assess the impact of COVID-19 in Catalonia. Using detailed demographic and mobility information together with extensive health datasets, the study published in Nature Scientific Reports quantifies the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions and vaccination, providing an evidence-based framework to evaluate pandemic response strategies.
This publication is the final outcome of the coordinated research project “A powerful stochastic tool to assess the impact of the COVID-19 in Catalonia integrating detailed demographic and mobility data”, funded by AGAUR in the call PANDÈMIES-2020. The project is led by IFAE (M. Bosman as Principal Investigator) in coordination with the Centre d’Estudis Demogràfics (CED) and the Foundation for Advanced Digital Technologies (i2CAT).
When the COVID-19 pandemic started, the consortium launched a multidisciplinary research effort integrating epidemiological information with demographic structure and mobility patterns. The IFAE team contributing to this project includes L. Gabbanelli, M. Manera, M. Martinez, P. Masjuan, Ll. Mir, I. Riu and V. Vitagliano.
Leveraging disaggregated socio-demographic microdata, mobile phone mobility data and large health datasets, the researchers developed a comprehensive agent-based network model of the Catalan population. Through large-scale numerical simulations covering the period 2020–2021, the model reproduces the historical evolution of the pandemic and allows a quantitative assessment of the population-level impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions and vaccination campaigns. The figure illustrates the agreement between simulated results and observed epidemiological data for Catalonia.
Beyond its retrospective analysis, the work provides a methodological framework that can be adapted to future public health emergencies. By integrating detailed demographic information and mobility data, the model supports evidence-based evaluation of intervention strategies and their potential impact at population scale.
An Agent-Based Simulation of COVID-19 History in Catalonia Using Extensive Real Datasets
M. Bosman, Y. Cordon, M. Duran-Sala, L. Gabbanelli, C. García-Pérez, X. Jordan, M. Manera, P. Masjuan, A. Medina, Ll. M. Mir, A. Oròs, and V. Vitagliano
New facility
New Thermal Vacuum Chamber inaugurated at IFAE
June 23, 2026
A new Thermal Vacuum Chamber (TVAC) has been inaugurated at the Institut de Física d’Altes Energies (IFAE) on the campus of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). The facility will enable satellites and space technologies to be tested under conditions representative of Earth’s orbit, expanding the capabilities available to the research and space technology communities. The TVAC is a joint project of the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC) and IFAE, made possible through funding from the CERCA Ginys III programme, together with additional support from the Government of Catalonia, the IEEC and IFAE.