Research

Completed projects

•Natural-artificial: residuos industriales, expertos y respuestas sociales en la España del siglo XX
Lead researcher: Agustí Nieto-Galan
Funding entity: Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (MINECO)
Effective start/end date: 2016- 2020
Funding: 33,154.00€
Investigators: Jesús María Galech Amillano, Judit Gil Ferrero, Marta Pujadas, Maria Pilar Punter Chiva, Joaquim Sales, Fernando Vidal.
Collaborators: Clara Florensa Rodriguez, Arturo Hortas Fraile, Francesc Xavier Solaz.

•Marcando diferencias humanas:psicometría y eugensia en España (1900-1950)
Lead researchers: Jorge Molero & Annette Mülberguer
Funding entity: Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (MINECO)
Effective start/end date: 2015-2018
Funding: €35,090.00
Investigators: Ramón Castejón, Isabel Jiménez-Lucena.
Collaborators: Mónica Alcalá, Mònica Balltondre, Mauricio Becerra, Celia García Díaz, Andrea Graus Ferrer, Ana Macaya Andrés, Sara Navarro Rendón, Génesis Núñez-Araya, Mariagrazia Proietto, Violeta Ruiz Cuenca, Michael M. Sokal, Carlos Tabernero, Marcelo Valenzuela.

•La física en la construcción de Europa
Lead researcher: Xavier Roqué
Funding entity: Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (MINECO)
Effective start/end date: 2015-2018
Funding: €31,460.00
Investigators: Marià Baig Aleu, Clara Florensa, Francisco Manuel Saez De Arana.
Collaborators: Carlos Acosta, Lino Camprubí Bueno, Silvia De Bianchi, Gonzalo Gimeno Valentín-Gamazo, Néstor Herran Corbacho, Luis Romero Miranda, Pedro Ruiz Castell, Jaume Valentines Alvarfez, Abril Vazquez de los Reyes, Mercedes Xipell.

•Order / Chaos: genealogy of two concepts in the culture of European Mathematical Physics
Lead researcher: Agustí Nieto-Galan
Funding entity: Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (MINECO)
Effective start/end date: 2013- 2016
Funding: €26,325.00
Investigators: Clara Florensa, Reis Fontanals, Oliver Hochadel, Joaquim Sales, Francesc Xavier Vall Solaz.
Researcher on contract: Carlos Tabernero.
Collaborators: Ignasi Meda, Eduard Aibar, Gonzalo Gimeno.

•Salud, enfermedad y orden social en España. Las dinámicas de inclusión-exclusión social entorno a la clase y la profesión a través de los discursos y prácticas médicas en el siglo XX
Lead researcher: Jorge Molero
Funding entity: Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación
Effective start/end date: 2010-2013
Funding: €27,830.01
Investigators: Isabel Jiménez-Lucena, Ricardo José Campos Marín, Carlos Tabernero, Tania AlejandraTrigo Salas.
Collaborators: José Manuel Gutiérrez García, Sara Lugo.

•Entre el centro y la periferia científica: El periodismo médico en Cataluña (1898-1938)
Lead researchers: Annette Mülberguer & Àlvar Martínez Vidal
Funding entity: Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación
Effective start/end date: 2010-2013
Funding: €24,200.00
Investigators: Mònica Balltondre, Sara Fajula Colom, María Teresa Leal Cavalcante, Alfons Zarzoso Orellana.
Collaborators: Antoni Vicent Adam Donat, Carlos Hervás Puya, Yoko Tochigi.

•The Earth Under Surveillance. Climate Change, Geophysics and the Cold War Legacy
Lead researcher: Xavier Roqué
Funding entity: European Commission
Effective start/end date: 2009-2014
Funding: €1,367,750.00
Investigators: Beatriz Cantero, María Elena, Marina Castells, Regina Civil, Lluïsa Herrera, Laia Torres, Ainoa Marzábal, María Carolina Pipitone Vela, Lizette Ramos Robles, Roser Nebot, Montserrat Torremilans.
Collaborators: Joan Aliberas, Celsa Cortijo, Enric Custodio, Josep Lluís Estanya, Roser Franco, Adrianna Gómez, Julià Hinojosa, Rosa M. Martínez, Begonya Oliveras, Vilma Paz, Carme Perseguer, Núria Ribas, Marta Simon, Núria Solsona, Antònia Vià.

La ciència en la Península Ibèrica. Un estudi històric comparatiu entre Espanya i Portugal, sgs XVIII-XX
Lead researcher: Agustí Nieto-Galan
Funding entity: Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia
Effective start/end date: 2006-2007
Funding: 7,000.00€
Investigators: Antonio García Belmar, Ana Isabel Da Silva Araújo Simoes, José Ramón Bertomeu-Sánchez.

Description: The objectives are: 1) to complete the compilation of relevant bibliographic information written in both Spain and Portugal about the problems related to the transmission of science on the Iberian Peninsula; 2) to share Spanish and Portuguese historiography, which have often developed parallel to each other, with the studies conducted by other European groups and the most recent international trends in this area of the history of science; 3) to plan and carry out case studies that enable comparative analyses between Spain and Portugal to be performed, particularly ones related to the aforementioned topics: scientific journeys, textbooks and teaching practices and the dissemination of science in Spain and Portugal; 4) to study the possibility of creating joint databases and other working tools that will lay the groundwork for comparative research projects in the future.

La divulgació de la ciència, la tecnologia i la medicina a la Barcelona industrial (1815- 1929)
Lead researcher: Agustí Nieto-Galan
Funding entity: Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia
Effective start/end date: 2006-2009
Funding: €30,250.00
Investigators: José Ramón Bertomeu, Reis Fontanals, Teresa Huguet, Àlvar Martínez Vidal, Jaume Sastre Juan, Francesc Xavier Vall Solaz.

La medicina i els seus públics en la medicina d'entreguerres: el Sindicat de Metges de Catalunya
Funding entity: Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia
Effective start/end date: 2006-2009

Medicina i regulació social a l'Espanya del segle XX: pensament subaltern i colonialitat del saber científic entorn de l'ètnia i la classe
Lead researcher: Jorge Molero
Funding entity: Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia
Effective start/end date: 2006-2009

Bases per a una història de la física a Espanya
Lead researcher: Xavier Roqué
Funding entity: Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación
Effective start/end date: 2005-2008

Creació d'un servei d'arxius de ciència
Lead researcher: Xavier Roqué
Funding entity: Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología
Effective start/end date: 2004-2005

Intercanvis tecnocientífics entre Espanya i Hispanoamèrica
Lead researcher: Xavier Roqué
Funding entity: Fundación Española para la Ciencia y la Tecnología
Effective start/end date: 2003

Grup de Recerca Consolidad. Francesc Salvà, d'història de la ciència, de la tècnica i de la medicina a la Catalunya contemporània (segles XVIII-XX)
Lead researcher: Agustí Nieto-Galan
Funding entity: Generalitat de Catalunya
Effective start/end date: 2002-2005

Tècnica, ciència i industrialització a la Catalunya contemporània
Lead researcher: Agustí Nieto-Galan
Funding entity: Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología
Effective start/end date: 2002-2005

La divulgació científica a la Barcelona industrial (1805-1929)
Lead researcher: Agustí Nieto-Galan
Funding entity: Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología
Effective start/end date: 2002-2005
Funding: €10,304.00

Tecnologies mèdiques en context: escenaris populars i agendes professionals al protectorat espanyol al Marroc
Lead researcher: Jorge Molero
Funding entity: Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología
Effective start/end date: 2002-2004
Funding: €23,047.55
Investigator: Esteban Rodríguez Ocaña
Collaborator: Francisco Javier Martínez.
Researcher on contract: Isabel Jiménez-Lucena.

Descripción: This project focuses on the relationships between health professionals and laypeople around certain changes connected with technological innovations in the sphere of medical care and prevention within occupational medicine, paediatrics, dermatology and syphilography and colonial medicine, with an emphasis on the rhetorical analysis of popularisation processes. One aim of the project is to study the way new technologies, according to gender categories, contributed to constructing the historical identities of workers, disabled people or the inhabitants of diverse colonial settings as different as Morocco and Equatorial Guinea, in which race played a prominent role. A further aim is to study the professional/layperson relationship as a way knowledge is produced in several medical domains. Classical archival and literary sources as well as less common sources such as poster collections and radio broadcasting will be used. The issue of "the audiences" of technologies will be a core concern in this study. Relations among science, technology, medicine and their audiences are expected to contribute to explaining the key features in the construction of our Western "culture of health".

La cultura material de la ciència: recuperació i usos historiogràfics
Lead researcher: Xavier Roqué
Funding entity: Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología
Effective start/end date: 2001-2004

Transformacions assistencials i tecnologies mèdiques en la medicina colonial nord-africana espanyola del segle XX
Lead researcher: Jorge Molero
Funding entity: Dirección General de Enseñanza Superior e Investigación Científica
Effective start/end date: 2000-2001
Funding: 2,392.03€
Investigators: Francisco Javier Martínez Antonio, Isabel Jiménez-Lucena, Esteban Rodríguez Ocaña.
Researcher on contract: Rosa Ballester Añón

Description: One of the most salient traits of the present state of medicine is the importance of technologies (considering this term in its threefold meaning as material, uses and knowledge). Technologies have clearly impacted the development of our current hospital-centred model of healthcare throughout the 20^th century, signalling a cultural change - indeed, a dramatic one - in relationships with patients. The rhetorical elements used to win the acceptance and vulgarisation of those new developments played a prime role in this change. This project sets out to study this process in Spain from both a nationwide point of view (such as the study of the hospital-building programme of the National Health Insurance, advertisements printed in medical journals in the first half of the century and propaganda films in the official newsreel NO-DO in the second half of the century) and local perspectives (researching the timing of the implementation of hospital technologies in Alicante and Granada, for instance). Studying the history of colonial medical services in Spanish Africa will also provide a better understanding of the major features in this process, as a closed example, because of the greater distance between the two cultures.

Desenvolupament Històric de la Física Subatòmica
Lead researcher: Manuel Garcia Doncel
Funding entity: Dirección General de Enseñanza Superior e Investigación Científica
Effective start/end date: 1997-2000
Funding: 7,212.15€
Investigators: Joaquim Pla Brunet, Xavier Roqué

Description: We intend to broaden our understanding of the historical development of subatomic physics. This development has brought about changes in the disciplinary structure of physics (from radioactivity to nuclear physics and high-energy physics), introduced new experimental methods (cosmic-ray detectors and accelerators) and prompted the evolution from quantum field theory to the physics of particles (leptons and quarks) and fields (electro weak and chromodynamics). The project focusses on a number of aspects in this development that have not received enough attention in the historical literature, including: the discovery of subatomic particles and the introduction of the related quantum fields; the coordination among different schools or traditions, each bringing their own theoretical and instrumental practices to subatomic physics; and the increasing interplay between science, technology and industry that has become a trademark of 20^th-century physics. Studying these issues seems particularly appropriate at this point, as we are celebrating the centennial of the discovery of the electron and the dawn of subatomic physics. Moreover, in the context of a joint project with prominent European history of science centres, we intend to relate our work to ongoing attempts to chart the integration of the science centre and its different peripheries in Europe.

Desenvolupament històric de la física de partícules i camps
Lead researcher: Manuel Garcia Doncel
Funding entity: Dirección General de Investigación Científica y Técnica (DGICYT)
Effective start/end date: 1993-1996
Funding: 14,424.29€
Investigators: Xavier Roqué

Description: We intend to investigate certain topics related to the historical development of present high-energy physics which have not received enough attention in the historical literature. These topics include the processes that culminated in the discovery of subatomic particles (from the establishment of the photon to the proposal of quarks) and the formulation of electromagnetic, weak and strong quantum fields. In its historical development, we look at high-energy physics as the heir of three preceding disciplines: radioactivity, nuclear physics and cosmic radiation. It was developed by various research schools which focused on different problems and organised their laboratories in different ways. Its progress required a constant interplay between theory and experimentation, related to the emergence of new particles and new fields. We will search for, analyse and connect primary sources.

Completed projects

Industrial Doctoral Research Component [GRIFOLS S.A] (2018-2021)

Nuclear expertise in Italy [H2020-NSCA-IF-2017 (Marie Curie)] (2019-2021)

Natural-artificial (2016-2020)

Postcolonial genealogy of intersexuality (2016-2018)

Marcando diferencias humanas (2015-2018)

La física en la construcción de Europa (2015-2018)

ORCHA [Marie Curie] (2014-2017)

Scientific authority in the public sphere in XX-Century Spain (2013-2016)

La física en la construcción de Europa (2012-2015)

Science and expertise in the public sphere: Barcelona, 1888-1992 (2010-2013)

Salud, enfermedad y orden social en España (2010-2013)

Entre el centro y la periferia científica (2010-2013)

The Earth Under Surveillance (2009-2014)

Bases para una historia de la física en España en el siglo XX (2009-2011)

Archives of accomplished projects