ICREA, Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies, is a foundation supported by the Catalan Government and guided by a Board of Trustees. ICREA was created in response to the need to seek new hiring formulas that would make it possible to compete with other research systems on a similar footing by focusing on hiring only the most talented and extraordinary scientists and academics. ICREA is an institution without walls. It works hand in hand with Catalan universities and research centres to integrate ICREA research professors in the Catalan research system. ICREA offers permanent, tenured positions to researchers from all over the world to come and work in Catalonia. Over the years these positions have become a synonym of global academic excellence. ICREA offers new research positions every year and continues to promote research in Catalonia. Cooperation, international openness and excellence are ICREA’s hallmarks. ICREA employs 273 researchers in all fields of knowledge, from philosophers to astrophysicists, that perform their research in 48 different host institutions in Catalonia.