Nekane Balluerka (Ordizia, Gipuzkoa, 1966). She obtained her bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) in 1989 and a phd from the same university in 1993, winning the Special End of Degree Award in both cases. On completing her bachelor’s degree she began to work as a lecturer at the Faculty of Psychology.

Since 2009 she has held the Chair of Methodology of Behavioural Science. As a lecturer she has been assessed as excellent on the Docentiaz programme. Her research lines focus on methods for drawing up psychological assessment instruments for intercultural adaptation and on the application of multi-level analysis models to the study of psychosocial phenomena. She has taken part in 42 subsidised research projects as part of the Qualiker group, on 9 of which she has been the lead researcher.

She has co-authored more than a hundred scientific papers, 26 books and 9 book chapters. She has four six-year research periods recognised by CNEAI. She has directed or co-directed 10 doctoral theses, two of them with European mentions, five with international mentions and three which have received the Special Doctoral Studies Award at the UPV/EHU. Two of these theses also won the Realidad Social Vasca [“Basque Social Reality”] first prize and runner-up prize, awarded by the Basque Government. She has contributed to 235 domestic and international congresses. She has given around 20 addresses as a guest speaker and has coordinated numerous symposia, round tables and summer courses in specialist forums.

She has spent time as a guest researcher at Arizona State University (1995), the University of California (2005) and the Cathie Marsh Centre for Census and Survey Research at the University of Manchester (2010).

Nekane has a long track record in university management. She is a member of the UEU (Basque Summer University) and a founder member of AEMCCO (Spanish Association for the Methodology of Behavioural Science) and of the EAM (European Association of Methodology). From 2011 to 2015 she was the editor of the official journal of this last association: Methodology. European Journal of Research Methods for the Behavioral and Social Sciences. This journal ceased to be included in the Thomson Reuters Journal Citation Reports database in 2011, as it is now in the first quartile.

She has worked as an external assessor for the AQU (Agency for the Quality of the University System in Catalonia) for 6 years. She was Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Psychology (2004-2006), Vice-Rector for Teaching Quality and Innovation (2006-2009), a member of the University Teaching Assessment Committee (2007-2012) and a member (2009-2012) and subsequently Chair (2012-2013) of the Ethics Committee for Research and Teaching Practice with Human Beings at the UPV/EHU.

Since January 2017 she is the rector of  the University of the Basque Country.