Basque foundation running disability-staffed manufacturing and food processing workshops; end-user pilot site for inclusive workplace and automation research.
Lantegi Batuak is a Basque social economy foundation whose core mission is creating employment for people with disabilities through real industrial operations — manufacturing assembly, food processing, packaging, and related production activities. They operate sheltered employment centers (centros especiales de empleo) across the Basque Country, making them one of the larger disability employment organizations in northern Spain. In EU research projects they participate as an end-user and real-world pilot site: their workshops serve as live testing environments for human-automation collaboration tools and supply chain innovations. This gives research consortia direct access to inclusive industrial settings that are genuinely rare to find anywhere else in Europe.
Both MANUWORK and SMARTCHAIN are conducted in sectors where Lantegi Batuak operates real production facilities staffed by workers with disabilities, providing practical end-user operational knowledge.
MANUWORK (2016-2020) directly addressed balancing human and automation levels on the shop floor — a central operational challenge for their mixed-ability manufacturing workforce.
SMARTCHAIN (2018-2021) on short food supply chain innovation reflects food processing and packaging activities conducted within their sheltered employment workshops.
Participation in both RIA projects positions them as a practitioner voice representing a workforce population — people with disabilities in industrial settings — rarely included in technology pilots.
Both H2020 participations fall within a narrow two-year window (2016 and 2018 start dates), limiting any meaningful long-term trend analysis. Their first project, MANUWORK, focused squarely on the manufacturing shop floor and the challenge of calibrating automation without displacing the human workers central to their mission. Their second project, SMARTCHAIN, broadened engagement toward food supply chains, suggesting a diversification of workshop portfolio that mirrors how sheltered employment organizations typically grow their industrial activities across sectors.
Lantegi Batuak is extending their end-user and pilot-site role across multiple industrial sectors, making them a credible partner for any future project involving inclusive workplaces, assistive automation, or disability employment in food or manufacturing contexts.
Lantegi Batuak has never led a consortium — they participate exclusively as a project partner, almost certainly in the role of end-user or live pilot site. Despite only two projects, they have accumulated 60 unique partners across 12 countries, which reflects the large RIA consortia they join rather than deep bilateral relationships. Working with them means gaining access to a functioning industrial facility with a workforce representing a population that is systematically underrepresented in technology research pilots.
60 unique partners across 12 countries from just two projects, both large RIA consortia. Their network is broad but shallow — many partners, each through a single shared project rather than repeat collaboration.
Lantegi Batuak occupies a rare niche: they are not a research institution or technology company, but a real industrial operator whose workforce consists primarily of people with disabilities. This makes them exceptionally valuable as a pilot site for research touching inclusive workplace design, assistive automation, human-robot interaction, or accessible production processes. Very few organizations in Europe can offer researchers direct access to a functioning, disability-staffed manufacturing or food processing environment operating at commercial scale.
