Why is it that whenever I leave home for an extended period of time to reside and work elsewhere, time suddenly stops and I get a distinct feeling that I can think and feel more, if not better? It is as if I have suddenly been given more mental space.

Photo 1: The Four Columns created by Josep Puig i Cadafalch in Plaza de España. 

Photo 2: Detail from Salvador Dalí’s house in Portlligat

Leaving people and numerous small commitments behind can certainly free up some precious time, but more than that, it is the novelty of an unfamiliar place, the meeting of new people, the getting out of the everyday routine, that shuffles your preoccupations and refuels your intellectual and sensual engine. For a time at least, it might make you think afresh. This, I believe, is essential to good research, be it in humanities or natural sciences.

The Marie-Curie Staff-Exchange programme offers precisely that, and spending two months at the IQS, surrounded by an international group of staff and students, many of whom have made Barcelona their home, will no doubt carry a long-and-lasting impact on my personal development as a researcher. In what was an academically stimulating and exceptionally friendly environment – as well as incredibly hospitable to newcomers such as myself – I got to participate in staff research seminars, PhD student presentations, and was able to attend an International Workshop on the Chinese development model and innovative strategies for sustainable development. It was also rewarding for me to have the opportunity to share my own research in a seminar attended by scholars and researchers from other disciplines. Speaking across disciplines might seem frightening at first, but the benefits quickly outweigh the initial – unfounded – reservations one might have. Complex phenomena demand interdisciplinary attention. What on my part began distinctly with a mild sense of an impostor syndrome turned into a constructive exchange between scholars conversant with quantitative methodologies and those of us who abide by qualitative research methods.

Photo 3: Lunch with the Representative of the European Research Executive Agency, Raquel Jimenez Frias, and the project members

Photo 4: Octasiano M. Valerio and Martina Bofulin in conversation with Justin Yifu Lin, the keynote speaker at the conference and originator of the new model of structural economics

Barcelona itself is a pean to the creative imagination; surrounded by so much architectural extravaganza (to go by the obvious) makes one not only surcharged with beauty but also curious to understand the Catalan modernista phenomenon itself – unique and utterly dazzling!

Photo 6: Three members of the ZRC project team at the final conference lunch, overlooking the Sagrada Familia

For the first time I also experienced what it is when an entire city (in fact an entire region) is turned into an open-air book shop for one day in a year – the day of Sant Jordi on April 21st – with roses thrown into the bargain. In what is now a reformed tradition, everyone gifts each other both books & roses. Previously it was men who received books and women flowers. Leaving Barcelona, I have been made the richer for being introduced to several wonderful (female) Catalan writers, amongst which the late doyen of Catalan literature Merce Rodoreda deserves a special mention, with Carmen Laforet and more recently Eva Balthasar following suit.

Photo 7: The decorated façade of the Generalitat de Catalunya

Photo 8: Crowds of book lovers on one of the main city thoroughfares, though negotiating the busy streets can also be taxing on the body

A city that thrives on thousands of years of intercultural affluence and effortlessly combines it with the benefits of the Mediterranean diet, skies and sea air is bound to make you wish to return. Mentioning something along those lines to now friend and colleague Mihály, he half seriously – half jokingly quipped: “The question is not whether you are coming back but whether you are even going to leave.” Leave I did, utterly grateful for the wholesome experience, but only so that I can one day soon return.

Written by Ana Jelnikar, June 2024