The Basque Country leads the collection of European scientific funds: it has raised 1.3 billion in 10 years

On Thursday, the Ikerbasque Foundation published the 2025 Science Report in the Basque Country, which states that the ACV is the community that obtains the most European research funds per capita, raising a total of EUR 1.3 billion over the past 10 years.

It has added this amount through the European Horizon Europe programme, which in 2024, for example, received EUR 124 million, which is reinvested in new programmes and new contracts in the scientific field.

This programme highlights ERC support from the European Research Council, which supports researchers of any nationality and age who wish to advance the frontier of knowledge.

A total of 57 ERC projects have been implemented in the Basque Country, of which 30 are currently under way, the highest number achieved so far.

The document also states that R & D investment exceeds EUR 2 billion, which for the INE accounts for 2.35% of GDP, making the Basque Country the largest R & D investor community in the Spanish State.

The report also highlights the role of the University of the Basque Country/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (UPV/EHU), which leads the research network in the Basque Country and has indexed 4,500 scientific publications in 2024, more than half of the 8,190 published in the Community that year.

64% of the total was published in the specialized journals of the first quartile.

With regard to the role of Basque society in scientific activity, there are more than 36,000 research and development staff, 24,455 of whom are engaged in research, representing 2 per cent of the working population of the Autonomous Community as a whole.

Outside the territory, the report shows that internationalization has grown by almost 15 points in the last decade, from 40% in 2011 to 55% in 2024. The Basque Government's Adviser for Science, Universities and Research, Juan Ignacio Pérez Iglesias, points out that these relationships are improving as they work and collaborate with "the best universities in the world" such as Oxford or Cambridge.

Despite the good results, Pérez Iglesias has been critical of the "significant" gender gap that still exists among researchers, with no clear propensity to improve since in 2023 the percentage of equivalent women working full-time barely exceeded 35%.

In response, the Counsellor has stressed that the four-year University Research Support Programme, the Cooperative Research Centres (CICs) and the Basic Research and Excellence Centres (BERCs) for the period 2026-2029 include specific measures to promote greater gender balance.

Among the results, Pérez Iglesias admits that 7.3% of scientific production in the ACV is mentioned in patents after enough time has elapsed since the creation of new knowledge and its transition to application.