The FUNDACIÓN Tecnalia RESEARCH & INNOVATION (tecnalia) was born the 1st of January, 2011, as a research organisation resulting from the merging of eight research organizations: Fundación Cidemco, Fundación ESI-European Software Institute, Fundación European Virtual Engineering, Fundación Fatronik, Fundación Inasmet, Fundación Labein, Fundación Leia and FundaciónRobotiker.
Tecnalia is the leading private research and technology entity in Spain and the fifth largest in Europe. Tecnalia employs about 1,450 people (164 PhDs) and its turnover is 121 M€, it filed 53 patents, had 3800 clients and created 8 spin-offs in year 2009. Tecnalia is very active in participating the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) having already 150 funded projects, 31of them coordinated.
Several Tecnalia´s research units - Construction, Energy, Environment, Telecom, Foundry &Steelmaking, Industrial Systems, Transport, Biomaterials and Biotechnology & Pharma- are working in nanotechnology and specifically in some research areas such as nanomaterials, photonics, computational design and nanosafety. At this moment TECNALIA is taking part in several in-progress FP7 European research projects focused on nanotechnology  (e.g. IAPETUS, LAYSA, CODICE, AEROCOIN´S, CODICE, NANOMATCH, EFFACEUR, POLYFIRE)  and nanosafety (e.g NANEX, NEPHH and SCAFFOLD).