The Lehendakari Iñigo Urkullu presided over the award ceremony this afternoon to a group of researchers from all fields of knowledge who will carry out their work in the universities and research centers of the Basque Country in the coming years through Ikerbasque. The event was also attended by Jokin Bildarratz, Minister of Education, Fernando Cossío, scientific director of Ikerbasque, and representatives of the Department of Education.
The Ikerbasque programs pursue a clear objective of attracting and retaining talent: on the one hand, it is about attracting those who are developing their research work abroad, placing special emphasis on the return of research staff from the Basque Country who at some point of their career they marched out; and on the other, offering opportunities to consolidate their careers to those who are already doing research in the Basque Country. Of the 35 researchers who have received their recognition today from the Lehendakari, 11 are Basque men and women, who have either returned to the Basque Country through these programs or have managed to consolidate their research position.
The Research Professor call, through which 5 new signings have been incorporated in 2021, is aimed at consolidated researchers with extensive international experience and leadership capacity. Among these researchers is Javier Muñoz Peralta, PhD in Biochemistry from the CIMA of the University of Navarra. He has developed his career mainly at the University of Utrecht and the CNIO in Madrid. He has now incorporated to Biocruces Bizkaia to promote research in proteomics and mass spectrometry aimed at studying protein regulation.
The Research Fellow programme, for its part, is an initiative specifically designed to attract and retain in the Basque Country young people who are experts in various branches of knowledge, with the aim of creating a "pool" of researchers. Thanks to the Research Fellow program, 18 people have joined in 2021. This is the case of Itziar Oyarzabal, PhD in Applied Chemistry and Polymeric Materials from the UPV/EHU. He has continued his career at the CNRS in France (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) and the University of Edinburgh. She has now joined BCMaterials as an Ikerbasque researcher, where she investigates complex materials with magnetic and conductivity properties.
These two calls are completed with the Research Associate program, which aims to be a bridge between these two categories with the aim to cover all stages of the research career, completing the already existing offers to young researchers and people consolidated in their scientific career. Through this call, 12 people have been incorporated in 2021.
Ikerbasque currently has 312 researchers including Research Professor (170), Research Associate (62) and Research Fellow (80), who have been incorporated into the Basque Science, Technology and Innovation System. Universities and R&D centers in the Basque Country are benefiting from the contributions of experts in the most diverse fields, ranging from experimental sciences to the humanities, including medicine, technical and engineering studies and the social sciences.
Ikerbasque is the result of an initiative of the Basque Government that aims to reinforce the commitment to scientific research that has been carried out for years by both the administrations and the universities and companies of the autonomous community, and which was reflected in the preparation of the Basque Science Plan, Technology and Innovation. To contribute to this effort to position the Basque Country among the most relevant powers in R&D&i, IKERBASQUE's fundamental axis of action is to serve as a pole for attracting research talent.
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