White Papers

The Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ) was conceived with the aim of becoming a reference center for chemistry within Europe. ICIQ is a research institute that provides the talent and leadership needed to improve citizens' quality of life through the application of chemistry at the frontiers of knowledge.

The Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia is chartered by the government of Catalonia (Spain) aimed at creating new research centers in strategic areas. Those who regularly follow the chemical literature may have noticed that a considerable part of the contributions from Spanish institutions arise from research work carried out in Catalonia. Not as well known and no less important is the fact that Catalonia hosts a considerable accumulation of the chemical industries (from petrochemical to biotech) in Southern Europe.

ICIQ considers that catalysis is the key activity for sustainable chemistry. Catalytic processes can minimize raw materials and energy consumption, and can lead to the selective formation of target products with minimal generation of wastes. In line with this consideration, ICIQ has taken catalysis as one of its main research topics. ICIQ's approach to Catalysis involves multiple perspectives and methodologies, giving a fundamental importance to the molecular recognition phenomena underlying the catalysis event. The second research topic of ICIQ includes the derivations of Supramolecular Chemistry towards the creation and exploration of smart molecular systems, within the context of the bottom-up approach to molecular nanotechnology. Finally a third line of investigation regards renewable energies and environmental remediation.

"E-Notebook from CambridgeSoft has been a catalyst
to increase the productivity of our research at ICIQ."
— Mario Endara, IT manager at ICIQ

Complementary to their research focus, ICIQ has paid attention to the development of a simple and efficient organizational model which would be able to overcome difficulties normally associated with larger and more traditional research institutions. Thus, in 2004 ICIQ sought the best chemistry support technology available and ICIQ became a customer for CambridgeSoft's flagship ChemBioOffice products, leading to a site license. By 2008, the forward looking leadership at ICIQ became acutely aware of the efficiencies gained by sharing experiments and research through a shared Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN). A thorough investigation and selection process led to the observation that the best ELN product for ICIQ, CambridgeSoft's E-Notebook was already in use. ICIQ then upgraded their ChemBioOffice license to the workgroup level which allows the use of a shared database for all their lab notebooks and inventory. The low incremental cost and immediate integration of CambridgeSoft E-Notebook into the workflows and sharing culture at ICIQ were immediate side benefits of this choice.

With the implementation of a E-Notebook Workgroup at ICIQ, important research data is now stored and shared electronically, and the savings and efficiencies gained have allowed the ELN to pay for itself. "We had expected CambridgeSoft's quality and ease of use would make it easy to integrate the shared notebook into our institution." said Mario Endara, IT manager at ICIQ. "What we did not expect was the total acceptance of the Electronic Notebook by our scientists and the immediate increase in productivity. E-Notebook from CambridgeSoft has been a catalyst to increase the productivity of our research at ICIQ." ICIQ has continued to update E-Notebook to benefit from added capabilities, and has further decided to implement a Compound Management configuration within the E-Notebook to manage the data associated with internally produced substances.