His academic and research career includes positions such as Research Professor Appointment Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid (CSIC), Research Scientific Staff of the Institut Laue Langevin (ILL), and Assistant Professor Appointment at U.A.M. Spain. Throughout his career as a Manager of Scientific Research he has also taken up positions of management experience: as a Member of the Neutron Scattering Advisory Committee of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology (1987-2011), a Member of the Synchrotron Radiation Advisory Committee (1987-2007), a Member of the Spanish delegation at the Council of the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), and a Member of the Executive Committee of the project ESS-Bilbao. He has been an advisor of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology for Large Infrastructures (ESRF, ILL, ESA, ESO) and a Member of the “Rector Committee” of the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre (BSC). From 2007 to 2012, he was Associate Director of the Institut Max von Laue-Paul Langevin (ILL) in Grenoble and since 2014, he is the Executive Director at ESS-Bilbao. He has supervised 4 PhDs and he is the author and/or co-author of 306 publications on International Journals included at the SCI-ISI Web of Science. In 2007, Jose Luis Pena Martinez was awarded with “Encomienda de Alfonso X El Sabio” by Spanish Ministry of Education and Science.