The Basque Institute of Agricultural Research and Development NEIKER-Tecnalia and the Elhuyar Foundation have renewed their collaboration agreement since 2016 to bring research from the primary sector to society and normalize terminology in the Basque sector.

One of the objectives of the collaboration between NEIKER-Tecnalia and Elhuyar is to reward the research carried out in Basque related to the primary sector. The agreed path was to add to the CAF-Elhuyar awards the category “NEIKER Special Prize”. The CAF-Elhuyar awards aim to promote, reward and recognize the dissemination, journalism and social inclusion in Basque of science and technology research and topics. Thus, one more year, the category “NEIKER Special Prize” has been added to the following categories of the contest: articles of general disclosure, articles of dissemination based on the author’s doctoral thesis, works of scientific journalism and scholarship of creation in science society. In previous editions, the “NEIKER Special Prize” with 2,000 euros has received the following works: A summer with sheep by Mikel Etxeberria Okariz, following his instinct and the mountains of Euskal Herria by Iñaki Odriozola Larrañaga: landscapes carved by great herbivores.

NEIKER-Tecnalia and Elhuyar also agree to join another Elhuyar strategic project: Zientzia Azoka, an initiative to promote the scientific vocations of young people, foster the scientific culture of society and spread local and current science. NEIKER-Tecnalia will offer young participants in the Zientzia Azoka the possibility of visiting their centres and will offer stays to the winners.

Another area of collaboration included in the agreement is the collection and proper management of the multilingual terminology used in the primary and food sectors. The result of this work will be a dictionary that will collect 1,500 specialized concepts in four languages.