Out of 1,623 applications, the 2025 call for BBVA Foundation’s Leonardo Grants for Scientific and Cultural Creation has selected 60 projects, including those of researchers Inés Aquilué, Gissell Estrada and Juan Murcia of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC). 

A new approach to urban reconstruction

Inés Aquilué Junyent, a professor at the UPC’s Department of Urbanism, Territory and Landscape and a researcher at the Urbanism Research Group, has received a Leonardo grant for the project “Morfogénesis urbana de la ciudad destruida: Nuevo método espacial de reconstrucción postconflicto” (MorfóCiDes, Urban Morphogenesis of the Destroyed City: New Spatial Method of Post-Conflict Reconstruction), which proposes a new spatial method for reconstructing cities destroyed by armed conflicts.

The project is based on the idea that urban simplification can erode the complexity inherent in mature cities, and it seeks to preserve this complexity through evolutionary models. The team will analyse twenty cities affected by contemporary wars (such as Aleppo, Mariupol and Gaza) to create an atlas of urban destruction and develop a method that combines morphology, topology and the social memory of place. The initiative will include interviews with displaced people and a travelling exhibition.

Robots and equations to understand cell migration

Gissell Estrada Rodríguez, a professor at the Department of Mathematics and a researcher in the Partial Differential Equations and Applications research group, has been awarded a grant for the project “Collective Migration across Scales: From PDEs to Physical Swarms”, a study that combines mathematics and robotics to investigate collective cell migration.

The project uses mathematical models based on nonlocal differential equations to describe phenomena such as cell adhesion and contrasts them with the behaviour of swarms of programmable robots that simulate these interactions. This cross-disciplinary approach makes it possible to validate theoretical models and gain a better understanding of how collective patterns emerge, with applications in biology, engineering and the social sciences.

Safer bridges against extreme events

Juan Murcia Delso, a professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and a researcher in the Analysis and Technology of Structures and Materials research group, is leading the project “Desarrollo y estudio de nuevos topes laterales para un diseño resiliente de puentes frente a eventos climáticos y sísmicos extremos” (Development and Study of New Shear Keys for Resilient Bridge Design against Extreme Climatic and Seismic Events).

The research focuses on the design of new structural devices, called shear keys, to protect bridges from collapse during earthquakes, floods or cyclones. These elements act as structural fuses, absorbing damage to prevent serious harm to the main structure. The project combines design, numerical simulations and laboratory tests at LATEM-UPC to develop efficient, replaceable and adaptable solutions for both new and existing infrastructure, thus contributing to the resilience of transport networks.

The three UPC researchers awarded in this edition are joining the Leonardo Network, made up of 742 researchers and creators, including UPC researcher Míriam Febrer, who was recently recognised.

This year, the maximum financial allocation for selected projects has increased to €50,000 per project, 25% more than the amount awarded until now.