Irun (old Basque for "fortified town"; ) is a town of the Bidasoaldea region in the province of Gipuzkoa in the Basque Autonomous Community, Spain. Nowadays it is widely accepted by the historic researcher community that Irun is the ancient Basque Roman town of Oiasso on account of the vestiges (port, factory, etc.) disclosed lately in the historic nucleus of Irun, while the name itself may have applied to the whole surrounding area.

The International Research Universities Network (IRUN), initiated in 2006 by Radboud University Nijmegen]in the Netherlands, was officially founded during a meeting in September 2007 in Nijmegen. Representatives from each of the network’s nine founding partner universities signed the IRUN Charter. IRUN currently represents eight European countries and is expected to grow in numbers of universities, countries and world regions represented. All universities currently in the network are research universities: their teaching efforts are predicated on the vigour and quality of their own research programmes and recent international scientific developments. It is the goal of IRUN that all research produced by the partners is pioneering and innovative.