IK4-IKERLAN reinforces its strategy to capture and develop talent

• “One of IK4-IKERLAN’s main hallmarks is our concern to develop talent in order to be more competitive”

IK4-IKERLAN is looking for talent. In the course of 2015 the Basque R&D centre will have a process underway in which it plans to recruit about thirty people to reinforce it capabilities. It is not a one-off campaign but rather the basis of a strategy that is seeking to drive forward the future competitiveness of the centre and its customers.

As Ion Etxeberria, the head of IK4-IKERLAN’s people area, explained, "people are the main driving force in IK4-IKERLAN’s co-operative project and our concern to seek and develop the best talent is one of the main hallmarks of the centre”. He went on to add: “The new employees will have the chance to develop professionally at a centre on a high technological level and which enjoys significant recognition from companies, universities and institutions.”

IK4-IKERLAN is looking for applicants in the spheres of electronics, telecommunications, mechanics and software. The job offers have been posted on the centre’s website.

Functions

The technologists and researchers joining the centre will be working on projects of different types. On the one hand they will be able to participate in projects involving transfer to industry with the top companies in the business base such as CAF, Orona, Alstom, Fagor Arrasate, Grupo ULMA, Copreci, Fagor Automation, or with SMEs as important as Laulagun, ABC or Tifell. The new employees will also be working in other areas that are strategic for the future of the organisation. So they will be joining projects that are developing cutting-edge technologies which in the future will be incorporated into new solutions for the business base. These projects come within the framework of the centre’s various lines of research devoted to embedded systems, electronic power systems, structural reliability and mechatronics, microsystems for industrial environments, intelligent maintenance systems, and electrical power storage and thermal management.

That is why IK4-IKERLAN is an ideal destination for people to train and grow professionally and where the new employees will find a philosophy of work that seeks to identify and develop new technologies wherever they may originate so that they can subsequently be incorporated into the products and services of our customers.

A source of talent

“We make a considerable effort in training our professionals in collaboration with leading universities in the initial stages (Master’s and PhDs) and later through their participation in major projects,” stressed Etxeberria. Thanks to this determination, the centre has become a source of talent which besides satisfying its own needs, also supplies companies in the area with specialised applicants.

The experience employees get at IK4-IKERLAN is very much in demand by companies and most of the people who pass through the centre continue their professional careers developing new products and services in which technology plays a key role.

It is worth highlighting the fact that in recent years there have been an average of 45 PhD theses in progress, high-level training that is being increasingly demanded by the business base; it is no surprise that 85% of the PhD holders trained at IK4-IKERLAN go on to join one of the companies that is a customer of the centre.

Etxeberria highlighted the fact that anyone who joins the centre to work on his/her PhD thesis will have available the broad network of IK4-IKERLAN’s collaborating organisations. “The people who join IK4-IKERLAN will be able to collaborate with Europe's most important centres and universities".

It comes as no surprise that the R&D centre has over recent years woven a significant network of international collaboration which more than 20 organisations belong to. This network, which features names like the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) or the universities of Aachen, Louvain or Zürich, enables IK4-IKERLAN researchers to do their PhD theses and go on international stays.

“I would like to highlight the fact that at IK4-IKERLAN we are not only managing to draw the best talent in our area but also some people who are out of the country, thus enabling them to return to work for our industrial base," said the head of the people area.

About IK4-IKERLAN

IK4-IKERLAN is a leading centre in technology transfer and in the contribution of competitive value to companies, thanks to its capacity to offer comprehensive solutions by combining various technological domains. This is possible due to its high degree of expertise in six major areas: embedded systems, power electronics, microtechnologies, energy efficiency and storage, structural dependability and advanced manufacturing and the fact that it has a significant network of national and international collaboration that complements its offer so that it can provide its customers with the best solution.