IQS lecturers and researchers are organised into research groups based on common interests in certain scientific fields. They work together on established research lines and also collaborate with external researchers from other universities, research centres and other entities or companies.

IQS has a total of 15 research groups, of which 14 have received the SGR – Cat 2021 accreditation of AGAUR (Govern of Catalonia). The 14 AGAUR accredited groups are considered as Consolidated Research Groups (11 groups) and Emerging Research Group (3 groups) . IQS has received funding for 2 of these Consolidated research groups. In addition, the research groups from the IQS School of Engineering are part of the IQS Tech Transfer – URL group, has received the TECNIO accreditation from ACCIO (Govern of Catalonia). This accreditation identifies centers that offer a differential technologies and knowledge transfer processes to the Catalan industrial sector.