How many times have you had to explain what crystallography is?

Many times not. Sometimes yes, however. For example, in 2014, the International Year of Crystallography, and then I was asked by the media on several occasions. I also made a crystallography radio show with Enrike Zuazua, a highly prestigious mathematician. “If you don’t speak, who will?” he told me. Through crystallography, you can do a lot of things, because you get to understand the material. A material can change the crystalline structure and become a sensor. This can be carried to a small kit and detect contaminants in the water. In Africa, for example, it would be very useful. Crystallography contributes to this.

You are a crystallograph, even though you have studied Chemistry.

Yes. I finished my chemistry studies in 1976, and I read my thesis in 1981. As a chemist, I found materials. I realized I couldn't work with materials like semiconductors. The materials were manipulated and transfigured. I didn't understand anything. I realized I lacked some other discipline, and I started working with the Catalans, through the teachers who were working here.

Were the Catalans teaching at the university here?

Yes. Before the University of the Basque Country, here was the University of Bilbao. There were no teachers there, and they had to take them out. We started from scratch. Through the Catalans, I went to Belgium, to the Louvain-la-Neuve University. It was one of the hallmarks of crystallography. England, Germany and Belgium were then the most leading countries in European crystallography. I worked with Professor Gabriel Germain, one of the pioneers of crystallography. You're happy because we went there. We, young people, worked from morning to night. And at four or five in the afternoon, goodbye! Until eleven o'clock at night we were still working. We wanted to learn everything, to take the time, because in 1979-1980 we had nothing here. Then they wanted me to stay. I said no.

Why not?

“The contacts, as many times as you want,” I said, “but I have to go back to my people, I have to start what I have learned here”… My people had to go ahead, I had to do my bit. I could stay there longer, but not. I left the doors open, in all the places where I have been, in Toulouse (Occitania) and in Germany, but I have always wanted to bring here what I have learned in exile. And I came, and here we launched our projects. I thought it was my responsibility. We didn't have anything here. Until Pedro Miguel Etxenike was a counselor. So the money came and we set out to buy the things we needed. Until then, we were doing nothing but exiles. We had a tremendous illusion.

In exile there are many talented young people.

Let's see if we bring them all back. But there's no room for work here. We have to manage talent well. We have a demographic problem, a need for talent, a climate change -- Before, I saw squirrels from branch to branch. Now I see only one in the nut. We are losing biodiversity. We must take care of all these things, at least to minimize their consequences.

What do we have to do to manage talent? How do you stop the talent leak?

Let me give you an example. China. At first, all they did was copy. Then they took the best talents -- chosen from the very young, the most talented -- and started sending them to the best labs in the world. Then they were made to come back, and they were made laboratories like never before. So China has come to lead innovation, from copying, selling a cheap product. Because they have minds, and knowledge and talent. We should also bring in the talents that we have outside. And look after what we have here. If we don't manage talent well, we have nothing to do.

We know what needs to be done. Do we do that?

There's Ikerbasque working. It is a strategic challenge.

Let me see, I will ask you correctly: Does the Basque Government do so?

Has the government said, but what are our companies doing to attract talent? It is not just the issue of the Basque Government. More can be done. The world is going very fast and more is needed in order not to lose the train of progress. On the other hand, wages are paid and it costs money.

Large infrastructures are also expensive.

Yes, yes… Society must be involved in this. And their implication is not simply paying taxes. It's a real implication. For example, in early June, a group of boys and girls came to college. Last year we carried out a pilot project with the City Hall of Leioa, because we are there. Ten boys and girls between the ages of 6 and 8 came. I wanted girls and boys half, but in the group there were seven boys and three girls, and so they came. They stayed all morning at the University, in the workshops. You have to start from a young age, so that from a young age they have sensations, with the help of the mentor. At the age of fourteen, we cannot compete with their environment.

When the kids came, you told us you wanted to share boys and girls. At the time, boys would be 99 percent, girls would be 1 percent, right? You're the only girl.

Ha, ha… No, the only one doesn’t. There were girls in letters, but there were few in science and technology. But take a look now also at the Euskadi Research Awards. Carmen Gallastegi and I don't have another woman at the awards. Classrooms are full of girls, they are the best academic reports and also in technical careers. Or look at the judges as well. When it comes to oppositions, women win them. But then, in the company, in the institutions and in society in general, it is men who dominate the top positions. Let's take a newspaper and, for example, a picture of a council or a commission of that kind, and they're all men. They look no more than blue suits. Sometimes, among them, a woman. That separation is unthinkable.

Teachers, researchers, managers… How can all three jobs be done at once?

You're an entire piece. I like to iron, it relaxes me, and as I iron I think about the jobs we have to do, or the lecture we have to present at the next congress. The head doesn't stop. In that, the first few hours are the best. I got up early, there's no noise, you're alone and you need a few hours to work. In the early afternoon, a meeting could be held, and in the late hour, when the organism is tired, messages could be sent. But the hours of creation are tomorrow. And you have to be creative, you have to be a builder, you have to be positive. People think, for example, that the current education system is better because students use the tablet. No, the teacher is the most important. The mentor.

That is what you mentioned earlier, the mentor.

The trainer, the tutor -- let's say as you want. For example, Messi.

Messi? Football player?

Yes. It's a crack, right? In your field, I mean. The baserritarra as creator. It's not all university. The creator is the one who does his job well. It's important that your work be your hallmark. Messi would be a good mentor. If I worked with children or active retirees, for example, it would be a great thing. Because it's a referent. It can infect that condition of creator. Another model, Adela Andikoa. Rustic, by Urduliz. I met him once they gave us the prize at the General Meetings: I gave him the title of “craftsman of the earth.” Her tomato, her place in the fair… Adela gets up and gives good days to the plants. Take good care of them, in a quiet environment… it’s a very important thing. Adela is also an example. It should work by transmitting its knowledge. For years, he has cared for the soil, he knows what's going on in the subsoil, and with the engineer or scientist, he should share his knowledge with those that tomato grows outside the ground, and with children, with young people. Nobody wants to work in the farmhouse. Perhaps we have not conveyed the message well, we have not made it known to society that working in the field is very enriching. These things cannot be missed, we have to take care of them with affection.

Is the university present in society?

That's what I heard the other day say. “The university must have a greater presence in society.” More presence? The university is within society! There is only a large number of graduates to see. But we don't realize it. It's like saying we have to work with companies. We do that work. Otherwise we would have been done! The current challenge is to maintain what we have done and to increase collaboration by working on the basis of new objectives. Now it says “missions”.

You are the first full professor of the UPV/EHU.

But in the Cristalography and Mineralogy section, that's wrong for journalists.

Do you remember the time when the grays, the Spanish police, came to Leioa?

Before reaching Leioa, we were on the street of Bilbao, in Old Botica. Then they brought us to Leioa, as they did in Barcelona and Madrid, to get the students out of the streets of the city, because we were rebels. When we were in the old medicine, when we ran in front of the grays – we ran and even got stuck – we fled to Deusto. And people would open the portals of houses to us. It was a tough time, but people helped us! I remember when we were brought to Leioa, we were coming by train to the village and we were walking up to college. We saw the farmer coming down to the village, the woman selling on the donkey, selling on the street of Leioa, with hair picked up in the pussy and in the handkerchief like our grandmother. Here we saw foxes and bats… This part was clean, without touching it.

Despite what we wanted to know, despite the questions we asked, what are your concerns?

Loss of respect. In general, respect has been lost. I'm really worried. And the role of the family. Things have changed a lot, nothing is like it was before, and it doesn't have to be, but the kids have seen it on their phones, they don't talk or they're at home, alone, without interacting with anyone... It's worrying. Children, and young people, have to be on the street, playing, and we all have to be more joyful, we have to be a more joyful people.

Maybe more joyful then. We were born in Barakaldo in 1950.

In the district of Burtzeña. There is the Cadagua River, and the bridge, and across the bridge, Zorroza… The Cadagua was then a river of angulas. We put our boots up, we got in the river and we trapped the angles, and eating, their price had gone up before the hour, when nobody wanted. I was born in Burtzeña, at home. My father was from Arratia, Dima. Mother of Emerando, of Larrauri. One had the Basque of the interior; the other had the Basque of the sea. In summer, even before receiving the notes, we were taken to Emerando, home to Grandma Felisa, where we stayed until October 12, when we started school again. In Larrauri it was no more than Basque. Back to Barakaldo, you can't speak Basque. That's what the mayor was then. And when I was about 12 years old, the priests taught us the Basque in the back of the sacristy, in the underground. We also had printed books on Coca-Cola ... We are Euskaldunzaharras.