Ignacio Herrera has been employed at the Politechnic University of Madrid (UPM) as an Assistant Professor giving lectures on Strength of Materials until 1997. Since 1986 his research activities have been connected to the elevator world. He was assigned the Direction and starting activities of the Elevator Laboratory at the UPM who was certified by the Spanish Ministerio de Industria y Energía for official CEE examination type tests. Since 1997, as a Professor in the University of Extremadura, has been involved in several research projects concerning the modelling of the safety gears behaviour and assessing in mechanical aspects of the elevators a number of companies as the head of the research group INGELEV.

Recently, he was assigned a new research project for the construction of a research tower test 40m height in Badajoz and is involved in the creation of the Lift Engineering Center of Extremadura.