Tecnun has celebrated the Opening Ceremony of the Postgraduate Academic Year 2018-19 and the Imposition of Master's Degree caps. As Coro Aycart, coordinator of studies, pointed out in the presentation, in addition to the 916 undergraduate students, 148 students will study this year one of the 3 engineering master's degrees offered by the School of Engineering of the University of Navarra in San Sebastian. In addition, 71 engineers will continue their doctoral programmes under the tutelage of the more than 250 researchers at Tecnun and Ceit-ik4, the centre for technical studies and research in Gipuzkoa that the University founded here in 1982 with the support of public institutions represented on the campus today.

The event was attended by the Rector, Alfonso Sánchez-Tabernero, the President of the Basque Parliament, Bakartxo Tejeria, the Minister of Economic Development and Infrastructures of the Basque Government, Arantxa Tapia, and the Director General of Management Strategy of the Provincial Council, Sebastián Zurutuza. The director of Tecnun, Raul Antón, the director of Development, Iñigo Gutiérrez, the manager Javier Aizpún, the president of Ceit-Ik4, José María Rodríguez Ibabe and academic authorities from the UPV/EHU and Deusto, such as Txelo Ruiz and José Antonio Rodríguez respectively, also took part in the event. The vice-rector of Mondragon Unibertsitatea, Jon Altuna, also attended.

The inaugural lecture was given by the CEO of Sener, Jorge Unda, entitled: "Projects. Skills and attitudes for working in a team".

The ceremony began with the reading of the most relevant events of the past academic year, such as the culmination of the process of renewal and accreditation of the master's and bachelor's degrees at Tecnun and the awarding of the Eur-Ace Seal (a European quality seal that mainly highlights the professional nature and high employability of graduates). 

Also highlighted were the research projects carried out last year together with the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa within the framework of the Etorkizuna Eraikiz initiative, the collaboration with the City Council in the programme for the return of talent and the participation of Tecnun in the Cluster for university training in Engineering, Science and Technology in the Basque Country, promoted by the Basque Government. Likewise, the creation of the first Business Advisory Council of Tecnun, made up of 24 companies with which Tecnun has collaboration agreements such as the Real Sociedad, Biele or Etxe-Tar, was also highlighted.

Extraordinary Doctorate Prizes

The event culminated with the awarding of the Extraordinary Doctorate Prizes. The winners were David del Río and Jorge Aramburu Montenegro.

The thesis by David del Rio from San Sebastian has explored the implementation of high data transfer rate transmitters for fifth generation networks (5G) and future networks, under the direction of the professorsRoc Berenguer and Juan Francisco Sevillano from Tecnun . This has been developed within the framework of the European project 'E3Network' with the participation of companies and centres of international prestige.

Jorge Aramburu's thesis was carried out in close collaboration with the hepatology and interventional radiology unit of the Clínica Universidad de Navarra within the framework of a project financed by the Ministry of Science and Innovation. As a result of the thesis work, a series of results have been obtained that have been useful for interventional radiologists who carry out radioembolisation treatment in patients with liver cancer.