Evolutionary biology aims at studying the processes and mechanisms generating biodiversity. After the Human Genome project, the description and comprehension of biodiversity is one of the most important scientific challenges of the XXI century, and coping to this challenge requires the methods and concepts of evolutionary biology. In particular, we need to understand the genetic basis of the difference among species (divergence) as well as within every species (variation, polymorphism), paying special attention at how differences are fixed and how are distributed, transmitted, maintained and how they interact with the environment. The description of genomes and the understanding of genomic differences in organisms are 
of paramount importance to understand the basic mechanisms of life and to place biodiversity into a robust evolutionary frame. The general objective of the IBE is to work on these contexts using all the available new tools, experimental and computational, to understand the basic functioning of life, to describe and put in context their diversity, to unveil the mechanisms generating biological innovations and evolutionary changes and, finally, to preserve biodiversity and to promote its use in a sustainable way. In particular, the basis of the IBE, and its main peculiarity, is the capacity to face biodiversity studies describing genomic and functional evolution at any observational scale: molecular, biochemical, physiological or morphological. The IBE aims at becoming an international reference in these subjects. The Institute of Evolutionary Biology (Institut de Biologia Evolutiva, IBE) is joint center of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) and the University Pompeu Fabra.