Bizkaia:talent shares out €900,000 in financial aid for taking on research personnel with joint funding by the European Commission  

• These grants are making it possible to take on, train and involve 25 highly-skilled professionals in 11 Bizkaian organizations active in innovative sectors.
• Up to the present, Bizkaia Provincial Government has invested around €8 million for recruiting new talent. With this investment, to date 145 highly-skilled professionals have joined 60 firms and organizations in Bizkaia.

Bizkaia:talent, an association that is part of Bizkaia Provincial Government, is sharing out the financial aid that it provides for research, jointly financed by the European Commission. A fund of €900,000 euros is available for taking on, training and involving 25 highly-skilled professionals in 11 Bizkaian organizations active in innovative sectors, such as the biosciences, climate change, biophysics, new materials and their applications, the automotive industry, and social innovation, along with others.

Specifically, the researchers who are being taken on will work in the fields of Biomedicine, Molecular biology, Neurology, Physics, Human Resources, Prevention of Risks at Work, Ecology, Renewable energies, International cooperation and Nanotechnology.

The organizations that will receive the financial aid this year are: CIC bioGUNE, BCAM, Innovalia Cooperative Society, University of Deusto, Bizkaia Biophysics Foundation, BC Materials Foundation, Berri-Otxoa, BIAL Industrial Pharmaceutics, Bilbao Metropolis-30, Biocruces Health and Systemon Chip Engineering S.L.

All of them will use their grants to meet up to 100% of the cost of taking on, promoting the careers of, and involving 25 highly-qualified professionals.

Over four million euros invested over the past four years

This financial aid serves to strengthen Bizkaia Provincial Government’s commitment, through bizkaia:talent, to attracting, developing the careers of, and involving talent in the Basque Historic Territory of Bizkaia. To date this provincial institution has invested over four million euros in the calls for applications for financial aid issued in the recent period jointly funded by the EC (2012-2015) to help with the taking on and training of, and co-working by, highly-skilled professionals.

The effort and investment that bizkaia:talent has put into its various financial aid programmes has resulted in 145 (60 since 2012) highly-trained professionals joining 60 (22 since 2012) organizations in Bizkaia which are engaged in the fields of automotive engineering, bioscience, aeronautics, creativity and innovation, energy, telecommunications, and capital goods, to name a few, with total financial aid in the region of eight million euros including this latest call for applications.

This financial aid – aimed at firms, universities, associations and foundations whose registered office is in Bizkaia or which have a centre of work there – has been split up into three different modes:

• The first mode is intended for supporting the integration into Bizkaia of experienced researchers.
• The second mode enables short- to medium-term co-working amongst widely-experienced researchers by allowing them to co-operate with Bizkaian organizations on carrying out innovative research projects in Bizkaia.

• The third mode supports the training/skill-building of researchers by helping their career development as researchers in Bizkaia through carrying out a research project in a renowned international organization that will enable them to broaden their skill base before returning to Bizkaia at the end of the period.