This handover comes after the former DOKe director, Gotzone Barandika, joined the team of Vice-Chancellor Joxerramon Bengoetxea in January 2025. Dr Portillo had since then continued to perform her role as academic secretary and Deputy Director of Internships, under the acting director Edurne Simón.

A professor and researcher at the Bilbao School of Engineering since 2004, Eva Portillo Pérez began working in academic management in 2017, as Deputy Director of Communication and Internships at the former Master's and Doctoral School (MDe), under the directorship of Ignacio Armentia.

In 2019, when the MDe became what is now the Doctoral School (DOKe), she took on the role of academic secretary, with Gotzone Barandika as director. She remained in this position up until her election, and will henceforth focus her efforts on consolidating the institutional work of a school which offers 67 doctoral programmes, and hosts some 4,000 doctoral students each year.

Continuity and experience on the management team

The candidacy headed by Eva Portillo serves to renew the former team, made up of representatives of the teaching and research staff in all five branches of knowledge. Previous deputy directors remain in their management roles: Edurne Simón (Health Sciences), Olatz González Abrisketa (Arts and Humanities) and Aida Vallejo (Law and Social Sciences), while a new academic secretary joins the team, with Sonia Pérez Yáñez now covering the branch of Sciences. Flor López Márquez likewise remains on the team, as the institution's head of administration.

Edurne Simón Magro, Deputy Director of Quality, once again takes charge of that role, having served as acting director following Gotzone Barandika's departure. A professor at the Pharmacy Faculty and accredited expert in analytical quality, she has since 2017 had responsibility for quality management, leading the accreditation process for all the master's and doctoral programmes.

Olatz González Abrisketa, Deputy Director of Education, an anthropologist and professor at HEFA, remains in the role she took up in 2018. Her efforts have focused on underpinning the sense of belonging among doctoral students, strengthening the offering of cross-functional training, and making students' emotional well-being a priority for the DOKe.

Aida Vallejo Vallejo, Deputy Director of International Relations and Communication, joined the team in 2024, since when she has been promoting international mobility and cotutelles, improvements to the website, and the creation of the DOKe newsletter. She is a professor at the Department of Audiovisual Communication and Advertising of the Faculty of Social and Communication Sciences.

Sonia Pérez Yáñez, the new academic secretary, graduated from the EHU in Chemical Science (2007) and was awarded her doctorate in 2012. An associate professor in the Inorganic Chemistry area since September 2025, she performs her teaching and research at the Faculty of Science and Technology. Sonia Pérez will be the institution's new “Euskararen arduraduna”, a position recently created to promote the use of the Basque language in the doctoral field.

Lastly, Head of Administration Flor López Márquez is a Geography and History graduate, offering decades of experience in the management of the institution, having played an essential role in implementing the changes that the DOKe has undergone over recent years.

The new management team looks ahead to an era in which internationalisation, institutional accreditation, the updating of lines of research and teams across the extensive offering of doctoral programmes will remain the priority, along with comprehensive support for students. With Eva Portillo at the helm, a new cycle now begins, focused on strengthening the role of the Doctoral School at the EHU, as part of a commitment to continuous improvement, procedural simplification, and the strengthening of doctoral academic management.