NanoGUNE establishes the guidelines of the collaborative field from the corporate strategy process, considering this activity as a key support for the achievement of the vision of the organization. These guidelines are developed with the objective of establishing alliances or collaborations with different organizations and stakeholders capable of offering synergistic benefits to nanoGUNE's activity. Through this activity, the organization can evaluate the added value of collaboration against its own collaborative capacities, fostering the optimal decision.

Since its creation in 2006, nanoGUNE's research activity focuses not only on carrying out excellent research, but also on the transfer of knowledge and technology to its industrial environment.
The main objectives of nanoGUNE are the following:

• To lead, support and coordinate research in nanoscience and nanotechnology in the Basque Country.
• To promote technology transfer and the development of a nanotechnology-based Industry.
• To support new academia curricula and high-level training of researchers in nanoscience and nanotechnology.
• To foster networking and the creation of alliances with institutions and regions all over the world.
• To strengthen the social use of research and the public understanding of science, including science and society issues.

You will find below the Mission, vision and core values of nanoGUNE, and the links to the main key policies.

NanoGUNE's management is organized around an Innovation Management System (IMS), certified under the standard UNE 166002:2014.

A system of this nature enables organizations to be more innovative and make their innovations in products, services, processes, organizational designs or business models more successful, contributing this way to improve their results, value and competitiveness. The management policy provides a reference framework for the establishment of Research & Development & innovation objectives and includes the commitment to continual improvement of the IMS.

The Finance Director is the responsible for the IMS.

NanoGUNE has developed and implemented a Criminal Risk Prevention Program to promote an institutional and corporate culture of compliance (Corporate Compliance), aiming to achieve orderly and responsible management as activities are undertaken at nanoGUNE, as well as striving for a culture of integrity, honesty, transparency, and respect for ethical standards and rules. Likewise, nanoGUNE intends to show its absolute rejection of any irregular behaviour in the development of its activities, mainly those conducts that by their nature may constitute a potential crime, whose prevention is the Program's primary objective.

Therefore, this Program is made up of different documents which are all framed under nanoGUNE's Corporate Compliance efforts. Via this website, we make both the nanoGUNE Code of Ethics and the Whistleblower Channel available to any third party who is interested in these elements.

The Finance Director is the Compliance Officer of nanoGUNE.

NanoGUNE projects office is responsible for the management of the grants awarded to the center for the development of research projects.

Dr. Yurdana Castelruiz is the Projects Manager. Ainara Azurmendi is the Projects Assistant.

The Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of The Council of 27 April 2016 is intended to guarantee and protect natural persons with regard to the processing and free movement of personal data. This Regulation applies to the processing of personal data wholly or partly by automated means and to the processing other than by automated means of personal data which form part of a filing system or are intended to form part of a filing system.

The dynamic collaboration and networking community of nanoGUNE's current and former employees. JOIN NOW and continue to grow your professional network on a global scale.

Useful information about nanoGUNE calendar and timetables. Leave and trip requests must be authorised by the superior through Tasks.

Through the following links you can access to personnel management tools:

Our vision is to achieve an effective gender equality within our organization, by reversing the existing structural factors that trigger inequalities and building up a working environment free of gender bias, sexist attitudes, and sexual harassment. 

Furthermore, we expect to contribute actively to the construction of a more egalitarian scientific and technological environment that incorporates the perspective of all genders, thus contributing to the development of a society were all people will have equal opportunities. 

In this section you will find useful information on how to manage the administrative, tax, and health processes that you must carry out when joining the center.

With the aim of making the newcomers incorporation as comfortable as possible, through this section we provide you some information about accommodation, transport, food services and socio-cultural data of San Sebastián. In the same way, we encourage you to write to us if you have any question or you need more information.

The Post-doctoral Career Advisory Program service is envisaged to Post-doctoral Researchers that are interested in receiving career advice and guidance by their Senior Scientist supervisor.

The mission of nanoGUNE's PhD committee is to support and assist nanoGUNE's PhD students during their career at nanoGUNE.

NanoGUNE is committed with fair and transparent recruitment procedures. We provide assistance with all legal issues related to the authorisation to work in Spain. We help our newcomers with a soft landing at nanoGUNE by giving them advise about all the administrative paperwork. We have in place an Outplacement service to researchers that are willing to pursue their career towards industry, and in particular, to companies in the Basque Country.

NanoGUNE is committed to providing its researchers with the necessary tools to make the most of their stay at the center, offering high level training to its researchers, specially to the younger ones, as well as other tools to facilitate their integration into the local community. 

To achieve this, we offer academic seminars, technical trainings, transversal skills trainings, Spanish and Basque language classes at different levels, and much more. 

Business trips and conference attendance travels must be organised through the travel agency appointed by nanoGUNE. Prior authorisation by the superior is required. A reimbursement of the expenses related to the business activity at nanoGUNE could be requested.

NanoGUNE is committed with safety at work. All measures legally required have been implemented and are bound to all employees. The Facilites Manager coordinates the health and safety at workplace with the collaboration of IMQ Prevención that has been designated as the external prevention service.

Through the links below, you will have access to scientific publications.

CIC nanoGUNE focuses its research activities on the following four major strategic areas.

The projects management office of nanoGUNE provides regularly with the information of new calls that might be of interest for our researchers.

• Calls

The purpose of the Technological Surveillance is to establish the basis for a systematic methodology for the analysis of the internal and/or external environment in order to capture, process and make available to the organisation information that is reliable, timely and structured and that allows decision-making with the highest possible chance of success, in this way putting competitive intelligence into practice.

An idea is a primary form of a new concept or scientific application. It is a generic view of the solution foreseen for the problem identified as an opportunity. The ideas are generated in each research group, by any of its members by accessing to "Ideas New". The ideas are archived for consultation within the scope of each research group through "Ideas Group" according to the degree of confidentiality that the author wishes to give to the new idea. Additionally, senior researchers can access all the ideas of their research groups and all researcher can get an overview of all existing ideas at "Ideas Summary" to establish a culture that supports innovation through collaboration.

Open access is the practice of providing online access to scientific information that is free of charge to the user and is reusable.

NanoGUNE projects office is responsible for the management of research projects providing support to the research team starting from the identification of funding opportunities and the preparation of project proposals. Successful proposals are carefully monitorized throughout the life of the project until the final reporting.

Dr. Yurdana Castelruiz is the Project Manager. Ainara Azurmendi is the Project Assistant.

NanoGUNE has adopted internal intellectual property regulations to establish the rules and procedures to protect the intellectual property and sale of the results arising from the research activities carried out by the staff at nanoGUNE.

Dr. Ainara García-Gallastegui is the TechTransfer at nanoGUNE.

NanoGUNE Researchers willing to protect a new invention must fill an invention disclosure form. This document incorporates the basis for a systematic methodology to disclose new inventions in order to analyse the value of a new invention as an economic asset for the organisation based on criteria of patentability and commercial potential.

The corporate identity or corporate image represents the way in which a corporation, firm, or business enterprise presents itself to the outside world.

In this section, you will find:

• The corporate identity manual of nanoGUNE, which defines the identity information, messages and guidelines on the use of our brand, and collects relevant information about the visual adequacy of the brand and its graphic treatment. 
• Files with our logo in different formats
• Templates that you can use in your daily work

We believe that the role of science and technology in society has never been so important as it is today. This is why we organize and participate in many science outreach activities, events and projects, with the purpose of spreading an egalitarian scientific culture and inspire a critical society. 

It would undoubtedly be impossible to meet our commitment without you, the nanoGUNE community! Therefore, we are continuously gathering expressions of interest to participate in the Outreach activities: ¡Sign up the form below! (You will need to log-in to nanopeople to see the form).

Outreach activities are a great opportunity to improve communication skills, especially devoted to the general public. We encourage all the community to get involved and, especially predoctoral researchers and researchers with grants that require to carry out communication and dissemination activities. Volunteers will receive a certificate of participation.

For further information or to clarify any questions, you can get in touch with nanoGUNE's Outreach Manager, Itziar Otegui. 

In this section you will find our corporate media, where we tell who we are, what we do, what our objective is, what our achievements are and, in general, everything related to our activity.

We strongly encourage you to read, follow, use and share us! 

Scientific equipment and laboratories at nanoGUNE facilities are managed by specialists and used by researchers from a wide variety of fields. The laboratory access and the use of nanoGUNE's scientific equipment requires previous authorization and booking.

The nanoGUNE cleanroom is dedicated to fabricate and characterize the properties of materials on the nanoscale. The cleanroom is approximately a 300m2 laboratory and contains an acoustically damped room for eBeam lithography processes.

The classification of the nanoGUNE cleanroom is ISO 5 (class 100), ISO 6 (class 1000), and ISO 7 (class 10000).  The air purity is under strict supervision within the cleanroom. Air quality is controlled by Filter Fan Units except for the eBeam lithography room that has a dedicated air-handling unit.

The nanoGUNE infrastructure was envisioned to fabricate nanoscale materials and characterize their properties on the nanometer scale and with sufficiently high sensitivity. The building size is 6 200 m², including 15 ultra-sensitive laboratories and a cleanroom of nearly 300 m².

Gorka Arregui is the Facilities Manager.

In order to improve our services, register every incidence and help the Innovation Management System implementation (based on the standard UNE 166002:2014), please place your maintenance/facilities incidences reports through the MantTest tool. Only requests reported to this system will be attended.

Note: IT incidences will not be managed by this system.

Through the following links you can book a meeting room and request access to laboratories and rooms.

NanoGUNE offers a large selection of books and journals to all researchers working with us. A specific software manages the loan and exchange of books and journals.

IT services provides infrastructure and support to users for their IT-related activities. The Facilites Manager is the responsible for IT services with the collaboration of SEIN TIC that has been designated as the external IT service supplier.

For a connection from outside of nanoGUNE a VPN connection is required.

NanoGUNE, as a contracting authority, must observe strict compliance with the Law 9/2017, of November 8, on Public Sector Contracts in the management of purchases.

Based on the expenditure limits regulated by the Law 9/2017, nanoGUNE differentiates between “Direct Purchases” (contrato menor), which are those where the expenditure is less than €15,000 (excluding VAT), and “Non-direct Purchases”, which involve an expenditure greater than or equal to €15,000 (excluding VAT).

The Law 6/2018, of July 3, on General State Budgets for the year 2018 introduced a modification in the procurement law raising the limit for purchases (“contrato menor”) from 15,000 euros to 50,000 euros (per supplier, per year) provided they are not intended for general services and infrastructure.

The Finance Director must be contacted for any question related to purchases.

An Innovation Management System (IMS) based on the standard UNE 166002:2014 is based on the application of the methodology known as the plan-do-check-act cycle (PDCA). Four essential aspects of the cycle are identified:

• Plan: Planning.
• Do: R&D and innovation process.
• Check: Assessment.
• Act: Improvement.

The organization shall continually improve the suitability, appropriateness and effectiveness of the system through the use of R&D and innovation strategy and policy, leadership, planning and objectives, processes that support R&D and innovation and the assessment of performance.

The organization shall identify deviations and/or non-conformities and establish appropriate corrective actions to eliminate the causes, or establish actions to improve the effectiveness and the results of the IMS.

The implementation of improvement measures shall be monitored taking into account the deadlines established, if the tasks set out are completed and if the expected impact of the measures on the system have been reached. Existence or potential occurrence of similar deviations and/or non-conformities shall be determined.