Fernando Ballester will be visiting UL's School of Law during a one-year research leave from the University of Alicante (Spain), in which he is a senior lecturer and an expert on Labour Law and Social Security. In the field of management, he was academic secretary at the School of Labour Relations (1991-2003) and the School of Law (2005-2008), as well as director of the University Venue of Villena (2008-2012).

He was a member of the Editorial Board of the Revista General de Derecho del Trabajo y de la Seguridad Social (2006-2014); he joined its external committee of peer reviewers in 2014. 

He is also a member of the external committees of peer reviewers from other journals, such as Alternativas, Cuadernos de Trabajo Social (since 2016), Revista Internacional y Comparada de Relaciones Laborales y Derecho del Empleo, ADAPT (since 2017),  Archivos de Prevención de Riesgos Laborales (2017) and Revista de Derecho Comunitario Europeo (2017). In 2010, he was appointed by the administration to resolve disputes arising from union elections in companies.

His latest research has been about the employment contracts of academic and research staff in Spain.

Research
Fernando Ballester carries out research in the field of Labour Law and Social Security. Over the last five years, his research has focused on the following topics:

  • Collective dismissal
  • Collective bargaining
  • Social security benefits: temporary disability and benefits for death and survival
  • Recruitment and promotion of academic and research staff at universities and national research institutions in Spain. These studies, which have resulted in various publications on the subject in national and international journals, are the basis for the research purpose to be developed at the University of Limerick, entitled 'Regulation on recruitment and promotion of academic staff at universities. A comparative study between Ireland and Spain.'