Thanks to the agreement between Telefónica R&D, elBulli, the University of Columbia and the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Pilar Opazo worked in her thesis about elBulli and elBulliFoundation. Ramon Sangüesa was one of her PhD advisors.

Pilar Opazo’s thesis studies different aspects. In general terms, it analyses the transition from elBulli restaurant to elBulliFoundation, where creativity and innovation were amid all its projects. It explains the use of a coded language in order to use it for creativity and innovation within elBulli. Among other issues, it also focuses on how and why, practices that got started at elBulli, have spread across time and social space, within the Gastronomy field.

Their GastroTechDays lecture can be found here. They explained how hybrid research implied using quantitative methodologies such as data mining, network analysis, etc. and qualitative methodologies like discourse analysis, in-depth interviews, etc. for studying the case of elBulli.

Its aim is to understand elBulli restaurant as an organisation and the collaborative practices that take place within elBulli and outside its boundaries. They perceive the notion of organisation, as something not strictly human, but as a mixed group feature of social systems, tools and others.

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Ramon has many articles related to this topic in its blog.