[3] In 2006, Baert founded the Iconology Research Group (IRG) - an international and interdisciplinary platform for the study of the interpretation of images.

She directed several international research programmes, including: Baert is also a member of the editorial board of Brepols - Series - IKON Studies and La rivista di engramma (open access).

[11] In 2020 Barbara Baert was a fellow at the Berlin Center for Advances Studies Bildevidenz and in 2021 she was the holder of the James Loeb Lecture at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, München.

With her paper on the same motif, she offers the first complete status quaestionis on the meanings attributed to the grisaille from the first hypothesis of Aby Warburg (1866–1929) to the present.

[14] The same year she was a visiting professor at the Centre André Chastel – Université de Sorbonne in Paris at the invitation of Stéphane Toussaint.