Spain's San Sebastian welcomes 1,000 plus researchers in 5 years

Spain's northern city of San Sebastian has welcomed the talent of more than 1,000 researchers in five years.

A program called Talent House has attracted some 60 different nationalities including Russians, Germans, Italians and even 32 Chinese researchers, according to program officers.

Peining Li is one of them, a post-doctoral researcher who has been working in San Sebastian for a year at the CicNanogune, a center focused on nanotechnologies.

"I am doing nanoscience and nano-optics here," Li told Xinhua, explaining "I came here because the scientific level of nano-optics is quite high."

The city was able to raise more than 145 million euros (156.7 million U.S. dollars) over the last years to develop innovation projects.

Nicholas Ballard is one of the 19 British who took part in the program, who "came here in 2012, just after finishing my PhD and at that time Polymat had just received the grant from the Basque government," he explained.

San Sebastian was recognized as the "City for Science and Innovation" by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology in 2011. The city has 34 technology centers, four universities, five clusters, a technology area with 74 companies and a business area with 158 technology companies. Endit