Aran García-Lekue receives one of the Ikerbasque recognitions for women researchers

The Minister of Science, Universities and Innovation and President of Ikerbasque, Juan Ignacio Pérez Iglesias, presided the announcement this morning of the Ikerbasque recognitions to three women who carry out their research work in the Basque Country: Maria José Sanz, Aran García-Lekue and Amaia Arruabarrena. The event was also attended by Fernando Cossío, scientific director of Ikerbasque, as well as the heads of universities and research centres in the Basque Country.

The aim of this recognition is to give visibility to Basque women researchers and their work, so that they can serve as an example and inspiration to new generations of researchers. Thus, an entire scientific career, leadership in a field of research and an outstanding contribution by a young female researcher have been recognised.

In the 2025 edition, the following researchers have been recognised:

• Advanced, recognition of an entire research career:
  • Mª José Sanz, scientific director of the BC3, Basque Centre for Climate Change.

• Consolidator, recognition of a leading researcher in her field of research:
  • Aran García Lekue, Ikerbasque Research Professor at DIPC, Donostia International Physics Center.

• Starting, recognition of an outstanding contribution by a young researcher:
  • Amaia Arruabarrena, Ikerbasque and Ramón y Cajal researcher at the UPV/EHU.

In order to select the recognised researchers, Ikerbasque carried out a bibliometric analysis of the scientific production data and identified the most recent outstanding contributions of Basque women researchers. The evaluation committee focused its debate on a final selection of 17 women researchers at the three levels mentioned above and highlighted the high scientific level of the researchers in the three categories, which reflects, in the words of the committee, the great potential of the science carried out in the Basque Country by women researchers.

Annual recognitions

This initiative is part of Ikerbasque's Equality and Diversity Plan, which sets itself the challenge of being a benchmark for equality and diversity at a social level and to this end includes, among various actions, the annual recognition of women researchers.

Advanced: Mª José Sanz

She holds a PhD in Biological Sciences from the University of Valencia. She is a specialist in the effects of atmospheric pollution on vegetation, as well as in the scientific bases of policies associated with climate change. During his initial training she carried out research stays at Arizona State University and the Forest Service of Riverside (USA). Since 1992 she has held several research positions at the CEAM Foundation (Valencia) and from 2000 to 2011 she worked at the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) in Bonn. Between 2012 and 2015 she coordinated the UNREDD programme (United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) and the FAO Forestry Department (Geneva). She was a member of the Spanish delegation to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. She was director of the Climate Change Research Institute in Zaragoza. Since 2016 she is Ikerbasque Research Professor and Scientific Director of BC3. In 2023 she was appointed member of the IPCC Bureau (2023). She has contributed to different reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since 2000 (including all methodological reports, a special report and an assessment report) for which she received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. Since 2016 she is Ikerbasque Research Professor and Scientific Director of BC3. In 2018 she received the Distinction for Scientific Merit from the Generalitat Valenciana. In 2023 she was appointed member of the IPCC Bureau for its Seventh Assessment Cycle ending in 2023-2029.

Consolidator: Aran García-Lekue

PhD in Materials Science and Engineering (European PhD, 2003) from the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU. She did postdoctoral stays at the University of Liverpool (UK) and at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in Berkeley (USA). In 2007 she joined the Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC) as a Gipuzkoa Fellows, and in 2012 she became an Ikerbasque researcher. She has been a member of Jakiunde since 2019. She maintains numerous international collaborations, and has been a Mercator-Fellows researcher at the University of Kiel in Germany and a visiting researcher at LBNL in Berkeley. She has carried out a great deal of scientific outreach work. She is currently director of strategic projects at DIPC.

Starting: Amaia Arruabarrena

She received her PhD in Molecular Biology and Biomedicine from the UPV/EHU in 2016. After her PhD she moved to New York to work at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), a leading centre in cancer research. In 2020 she returned to the Basque Country to join the Cancer Cell Signalling and Metabolism laboratory (CIC bioGUNE), funded by a Juan de la Cierva Incorporation grant. In 2021 she was recognised with Ikerbasque Research Fellow, Junior leader La Caixa Retaining 2022, and Ramon y Cajal 2021. In 2023 she received the L'Oreal-Unesco Award. In 2023 she established herself as a senior researcher at the UPV/EHU, where she studies the connection between metabolism and epigenetic regulation in breast cancer.