Iñaki San Sebastián, new Vice-President of the European Association, EARTO

20 March 2019. EARTO, the European Association of Research & Technology Organisations, appointed Iñaki San Sebastián, CEO of TECNALIA, as the new Vice-President of the network yesterday. The appointment was during an act held yesterday in Espoo (Finland), in which the new President, Antti Vasara, the former Vice-President of EARTO and President and CEO of VTT, the leading private applied technological research centre in Finland, was also appointed.

San Sebastián, who has been the CEO of TECNALIA since 2016, wished to highlight that "forming an active part of an organisation like EARTO is an honour for TECNALIA. I am strongly convinced of the role of research centres as an essential bridge between R&D and innovation and the business reality, developing technological assets that improve European competitiveness in the different sectors of activity and hence, people's quality of life. EARTO is a vital network in this respect which helps us to fulfil our work, represents us and gives us a voice".  

TECNALIA is a member of the EARTO Executive Board, as well as its Executive Committee, made up of organisations of relevance, such as FRAUNHOFER (Germany), RISE (Denmark), CEA (France), SINTEF (Norway), TNO (Holland) or VTT (Finland). 

A path linked to research and business

Iñaki San Sebastián's professional career has always been linked to research and the business world. He has been and still is a member of many relevant national and international committees related to Scientific and Technological Systems Design and Strategy.

He is currently a member of the EARTO Executive Board (in representation of the Spanish technology centres) and its Executive Committee. He presides over the EUROTECH Think‐Tank (a high level think‐tank made up of CEOs from the 10 largest Technology Centres in Europe, with a key role on the national level). In 2017, he was a member of the European Commission's High Level Group on Industrial Technology.

Having worked for 16 years at the Fatronik technology centre, Iñaki San Sebastián was appointed Managing Director in 2008. Simultaneously, from 2008 to 2010, he held the position of Technology and Market Manager at Corporación Tecnalia. In 2011, following the merger of 8 technology centres into Tecnalia, he was appointed Deputy Managing Director, and has been CEO of the organisation since 2016. 

About EARTO (European Association of Research and Technology Organisations)

Founded in 1999, EARTO, the European Association of Research and Technology Organisations, is made up of more than 350 members from 20 countries. Therefore, it represents 150,000 highly qualified researchers and engineers who manage a wide range of innovation infrastructures.

The objective of EARTO is to foster strategic research to develop new knowledge and technologies for their future implementation; encourage knowledge transfer to assure the widest possible dissemination; promote collaboration between different research entities to develop technologies and specific applications. 

About TECNALIA

TECNALIA is a leading Research and Technological Development Centre in Europe, with 1,400 experts representing 30 different nationalities, focusing on transforming technology into GDP to improve people's quality of life, by creating business opportunities for companies.