Mikel Gartziarena San Policarpo

Mikel Gartziarena is an Assistant Professor (accredited as an Associate Professor) in the Department of Language and Literature Didactics at the Faculty of Education, Philosophy, and Anthropology, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) and account a six-year-research period (2018-2023). He currently teaches in the Pre-Primary and Primary Teacher Training programs at UPV/EHU’s Gipuzkoa Campus. Mikel holds a degree in Primary Education Teacher Training with a specialization in Foreign Language Teaching (UPV/EHU), a postgraduate qualification from the School of Writers (UNED), and a European Master’s in Multilingualism and Education (UPV/EHU). After several years of teaching in primary education, he secured a UPV/EHU research contract (2017–2021) to complete his international Ph.D. thesis, titled “Primary School Teachers' Beliefs about Multilingualism and Methodologies in Southern Basque Country,” which received a Cum Laude distinction and the Extraordinary Doctoral Award in Education Sciences in 2023. His research focuses on teachers’ beliefs and attitudes towards minority languages and multilingualism, effective strategies for multilingual language teaching, and the social and linguistic factors essential to the revitalization and use of minority languages. He has conducted multiple research projects funded by the Basque Government, the Provincial Council of Araba, the University of the Basque Country, and Erasmus+. His international research collaborations have included research stays at institutions such as Aberystwyth and Bangor Universities (Wales), Université de Montreal (Canada), University Bordeaux Montaigne and University de Pau and Pays de l’Adour (UPPA, Northern Basque Country), Università degli Studi di Trieste (Italy), Boise State University (USA), and the University of Nevada, Reno (USA). In 2024, he was appointed Alan R. King Professor in Residence at the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies (CAWCS) at Aberystwyth University in coordination with the University of Wales Trinity Saint David and Etxepare Euskal Institutua. He has given several lectures as a guest speaker at the University of the Basque Country, Freie Universität (Germany), and Prifysgol Aberystwyth University (Wales), among others. Additionally, he has been awarded with the Best Poster Presentation Award at the SYRISM International Congress (Poland, 2017), the IX. Karmele Igartua grant (2019) and the Henrike Knörr research-grant award to investigate the use of Basque in Araba (the Basque Country, 2023). He has contributed with over 20 publications in Basque, Spanish, and English across high ranked national and international journals, including Euskera, Fontes Linguae Vasconum, System, International Journal of Multilingualism, Language and Education, and Current Issues in Language Planning. His work has also been presented at international conferences such as ACLA/CAAL, IAML3, EDiLiC, and ICML. Mikel is a member of the editorial board of Tantak journal in the Basque Country and has also served as a reviewer for high-impact international journals and as an external reviewer for the Young International Academics Proposal (IAS, University of Luxembourg). He is an active member of the Canadian Association of Applied Linguistics and the International Association of Multilingualism.