The Board of Trustees of the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) has today appointed Izaskun Lacunza Aguirrebengoa as the new General Director of the Foundation, dependent on the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities.
Lacunza is an expert in scientific advisory programs, mobility and attraction of scientific talent, open science and gender equality in research. Until his appointment as Director General, he was Director of FECYT’s Department of Public Policy and Coordinator of the Congressional Office of Science and Technology (Office C), a pioneering initiative of scientific advice to the Legislative Branch.
He has participated in the management and promotion of iconic FECYT projects such as the EURAXESS initiative to attract and retain talent; In developing European human resource management principles in research with a gender perspective; and launched mentoring programs for diversification of the scientific profession and gender equality (REBECA and FELISE).
Likewise, FECYT has been the coordinator of the promotion and support provided by FECYT to associations of Spanish scientists abroad and other European projects of interest to the Foundation in the fields of science diplomacy and science for public policy.
He also has international experience and between 2012 and 2014 he was the Executive Director of LIBER (Network of European Research Libraries), where he led the Open Science Movement and its partners’ participation in European projects.
He has also participated in publications, among which the Congressional Office of Science and Technology’s C reports stand out, as well as articles on research mobility and science diplomacy: Review of the European Charter and Code of Conduct on the Recruitment of Researchers (2021); A Call for a Systematic Change: Towards an EU Science Diplomacy to Address Global Challenges (2021) and Spanish Science Diplomacy: A Global and Collaborative Bottom-Up Approach (2017).
Lacunza holds a degree in Food Science and Technology and a PhD in Chemical Sciences from the Autonomous University of Madrid and has studied in ESADE’s Public Sector Management Program.
FECYT promotes Spanish scientific culture
FECYT works to improve the relationship between science and society, to promote the development of Spanish scientific culture and to encourage the transfer of knowledge through dissemination, education, training, information and consultations.
It collaborates with other agents and actors of the science, technology and innovation system in the internationalization of Spanish science, the creation and analysis of data and the management of scientific information and open science.
