Interview with Santiago Rementeria, General Manager of the Centre
GAIKER is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. What would you say have been the most important milestones in the centre's history since 1985?
GAIKER was set up in 1985 as a non-profit association promoted by the Provincial Council of Bizkaia for the technological development of new materials, and in 1992 it merged with BIOTEK, a biotechnology group also set up by the Provincial Council in 1988. In 1993, we were granted the status of Supervised Entity by the Basque Government, and subsequently became a member of the Basque Association of Technology Centres (EITE). In 1997, we changed our legal and corporate model and became a private non-profit foundation. In 2005, we were founding members of the IK4 Research Alliance and in 2019 we joined the Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA). These milestones of a corporate nature were interspersed with strictly technological ones and with others such as the coordination of the first international project (1991) and the establishment of our current location in Zamudio (1993).
How has GAIKER's mission evolved since its foundation to the present day? What contribution has GAIKER made to the region's business and technology fabric?
From the outset, the aim was to “help companies to increase their competitiveness”. Our mission continues to be to promote the use of technology as a key tool to contribute to increasing the competitiveness of the business sector, through our own R&D and the transfer of knowledge and experience acquired from developing innovative solutions for companies.
This is the type of activity we have always carried out with our customers (more than 4,000 companies in total), which has resulted in almost 13,000 collaborations, including around 1,200 R&D projects. We have also registered about 100 patents and launched around 20 technology-based spin-offs in conjunction with these companies. We also contribute to business competitiveness by organising training courses on our specialist technologies and transferring qualified research staff to Basque industry.
At one of the most disruptive moments in history, what are GAIKER's technological plans for the coming years?
From a technological point of view, there have been more disruptive times than the present, although it is undeniable that we are currently experiencing a period of change. We are committed to strengthening our specialisation in disciplines related to the circularity of materials, sustainable manufacturing processes and the bioeconomy, incorporating digital technologies, sensorisation, artificial intelligence and robotics, among others. Moreover, the shift we are experiencing in the R&D priorities of state institutions as a result of the geopolitical context, and which we also expect to see in European institutions, is leading us to broaden the range of applications for the technologies we are developing, with an impact on sectors such as security, aeronautics and space.
How do they fit into the centre's strategic plan for 2024-2027?
GAIKER's 2027 strategy strengthens our commitment to contributing to the technological priorities of the Basque Country and Europe, with a primary focus on technology transfer to businesses. More specifically, our objectives are aligned with the Basque Country Industry Plan 2030 recently presented by the Basque Government.
We are committed to a set of scientific and technological areas of specialisation in which we are looking to establish ourselves as a centre of excellence. We do not aspire to be experts in everything, but to focus on a number of core technologies and to have stable, first-class partners for other potentially ancillary technologies.
In the area of composites and functional polymers, we will work towards achieving more circular materials, taking advantage of the intrinsic value of plastic and composite recycling streams and incorporating bio-based materials, additives and biodegradable materials, their formulation and advanced characterisation. This is all aimed at reducing our carbon footprint and replacing fossil fuels. In another line of work, we will look at developing state-of-the-art polymeric materials with built-in sensing capabilities, and haptic and piezoresistive characteristics. Developments will be supported by digitalised production processes, where we are committed to delving deeper into process simulation and monitoring, and structural calculations. We will also strengthen our capabilities with regard to advanced recycling technologies through the use of AI, new developments in spectroscopic identification techniques, and various chemical and enzymatic recycling methods. In the field of biotechnology, we will delve deeper into biomedicine, with a particular focus on the pharmaceutical and dermocosmetic sectors as specialists in the development and safety of new ingredients and products, in industrial microbiology, developing new environmental technologies centred on ecotoxicology and the bioremediation of water and soil, and in state-of-the-art amplification techniques for designing medical devices for pathogen detection.
Although some of these lines were previously considered to be separate from one another, we are now seeing more and more opportunities for multidisciplinary integration in the areas where they overlap, leading to synergies that promote circularity and the bioeconomy.
What targets have been set for its completion?
On the revenue side, the objective is to continue on the growth path of recent years, aiming for an average annual increase of 7%. Last year was the first year of the plan, and we grew 12% over the previous year. The increase will mainly come from contract revenue, with public funding accounting for a smaller share. We also expect to maintain a level of investment of around 1.5 million euros per year. By the end of the period, we expect to have around 140 staff members, more than 80% of whom will be research personnel.
Of the projects the centre is working on at the moment, could you cite a few that reflect these commitments?
Below are some examples of industrial transfer, which is ultimately our main purpose. Eight companies are collaborating on the CICLO project, and we are coordinating the contributions of the six technology actors involved. The aim is to recycle and recover wind turbine blades and other components used in the construction of wind turbines, and to develop new materials (polymer matrices) that can be recycled more easily. This promotion of the circular economy is also evident at POST-AUTO, where we are developing technologies to recycle and process post-consumer plastic materials from the automotive sector so that they can be recovered and reused in new vehicles. At MAGIC, we are working individually for a food company to chemically recycle heavily coloured PET bottle waste, which allows new bottles to be manufactured from the synthesis of the monomers resulting from depolymerisation. In the field of biomedicine, one example of our work is organ regeneration, where we are contributing to the RECURE project to validate in vitro biological safety as part of the development of a biodegradable endoprosthesis for ureteral reimplantations.
GAIKER is establishing itself as a European leader in several fields. After achieving record figures in 2024 for involvement in European consortia and leading projects in the European Horizon programme, what projects is the centre working on in 2025?
We collaborate in international consortia with a focus on topics related to the circular economy, eco-innovation, safe-and-sustainable-by-design methodologies, and the biohealth sector. This year, we have been involved in more than a dozen Horizon Europe projects, leading three of them related to sustainable polymers: ECORES WIND, the aim of which is to develop new circular resins for use in wind power generation structures; BIOSAFIRE, which focuses on developing bio-based fire retardant materials; and E-OILÉ, which is geared towards designing and validating safe and biodegradable packaging solutions. Furthermore, we are involved in the FASTER-H2 project to design the rear fuselage of a new medium-range aircraft that will be hydrogen-compatible, a project coordinated by Airbus as part of the Clean Aviation aeronautical development programme.
Following 40 years in business, what are GAIKER's objectives for the next decade?
Our main objective has been to consolidate our position as a medium-sized, highly specialised centre that masters technologies of industrial interest for our business environment, with a positive impact on our customers' activities and a commitment to the challenges facing society. To this end, we have a growing number of leading researchers in their respective fields who enjoy an attractive working environment from a professional point of view. By the time it celebrates its fiftieth anniversary, GAIKER will maintain a balance between training and technology transfer efforts, exploit synergies between its scientific and technological departments, and be a leader in several areas of applied research and development. For example, this will apply to technologies and processes for smart sorting, identification, recovery and circularity of materials, both from conventional waste streams and those associated with renewable generation, electric mobility, or key raw materials. It will also apply to the development, analysis and circularity of all types of plastic or polymer-based materials, aiming for sustainable processes, less dependence on hydrocarbons and less waste going to landfill. We will have extensive experience in developing and applying new approach methodologies (NAMs), developing technologies that allow alternatives to traditional animal testing to be used to study biological functions and human diseases, such as new in vitro models, organotypic cultures, 3D tissue models, in silico models and the use of microfluidics to develop organ-on-chips, all combined with the use of high content screening (HCS) platforms. By 2035, we will be firmly established in Europe and, following the trend of recent years, we will have gained the trust of new large companies and SMEs alike to tackle the technological challenges of the future together.
