Josep Nogués earned his degree from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) in 1986. After obtaining his PhD at the Kungliga Tekniska Höskolan (Royal Institute of Technology) in Stockholm (Sweden) in 1993, he moved to the University of California San Diego (USA) to complete his postdoctoral studies. Four years later he returned to the UAB as an associate researcher, becoming an ICREA research professor in 2001 and a founding member of the former Catalan Institute of Nanotechnology (ICN) shortly thereafter. His Magnetic Nanostructures group was formally integrated into the ICN structure in 2006.