Sources: Ikerbasque
The first phase of the Ikerbasque 2011 call for proposals receives over 400 applications from global scientists for 20 research posts in the Basque Country
Euskadi's attractiveness as a destination for scientists and researchers has been demonstrated by the first phase of the IKERBASQUE 2011 call for proposals to recruit a total of 20 international experts to various universities and R&D Centres in the country. In the first quarter of 2011 alone, 427 applications were received - 21 times the number of places available.
The number of hopeful candidates by far exceeded IKERBASQUE's expectations. The foundation has already made an initial selection of 205 scientific CV's from those received before 31st March, the closing date of the first phase of the call for proposals. The second deadline is 30th September and around twenty senior researchers will be selected from the best candidates who applied under both deadlines to join the universities, research and excellence centres, cooperatives, bio-medical institutions and technological corporations of the Basque Country. At the end of 2010, the payroll of scientists recruited by IKERBASQUE to work in the Basque Country included 77 senior permanent researchers and 22 visitors hired to develop a fixed-term project.
The 205 candidates pre-selected from the first call for proposals have the following profile: average age 44 years, 82% male and 18% female, with a majority from the European Union. 29% applied from Spain (of which 30% from the Basque Country itself), 11% from Italy, 7% from Germany and 5% from France. Applications from other European Countries have increased 19% to which 5% from Russian institutions must be added.
The remaining 24% come from across the globe: 7% from the USA, 7% from the Americas and the same percentage from the Asian continent. Africa and Oceania are also represented with 1% each.
As for the centres from which candidates have applied, most are based in the USA and the UK although there is also a presence of teaching institutions or research centres in Germany, Switzerland, Canada, Spain, France, Finland, Japan and Taiwan. The prestige of universities from which some candidates have applied is outstanding: Oxford, Cambridge, Manchester and Edinburgh in the UK, Yale, Stanford, Georgetown or Chicago in the USA; Tokyo in Japan or the Free University of Berlin and Heidelberg in Germany. Prestigious centres are also represented: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Max Planck Institute in Munich, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) or the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), France.
As for the fields of knowledge, most selected candidates work primarily in the field of Experimental Sciences (65%). The rest are spread out across Medical and Life Sciences (11%), Technology and Engineering (10%), Social Sciences (10%) and the Humanities (4%).