The Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas is the largest publicly-funded research organisation in Spain. The Institute has well equipped analytical laboratories for environmental (especially air quality) monitoring and analysis, and the group involved in this project have been working on the interpretation of air pollution in urban and rural areas of Spain since 1996, and in the UK since 2001. The group has specific interests in the monitoring and analysis of exotic particulate intrusions, such as Saharan dust into southern Europe, and in the characterising and reduction of traffic-related particles.

Teresa Moreno (Dr. researcher), Xavier Querol (Professor researcher) and Andrés Alastuey (Dr. researcher). All three have been working on air pollution for many years, especially on measurement and characterisation of PM as well as its legislative controls, and are actively publishing internationally with more than 40 papers published in the last five years.

Recent Spanish-founded research projects include working on: particulate matter (PM) levels produced by coal combustion (1995–1998), composition of atmospheric aerosols around Doñana after the Aznalcollar mine accident (1998-1999), source apportionment of PM in Spain (1998–2005), evaluation of the PM 10and PM 2.5 levels and compositions in Spain and the demands required by recent EU directives on atmospheric pollution (2000-2006), impact of African dust intrusions on the air quality of Spain (2001-2005), and the influence of external, regional and local sources on the PM levels in urban sites in Spain, with especial emphasis on the role of traffic as a key urban pollutant (2004-2007).