Propelling innovation: 78 million in aid, and a new system

To transform the economy and competitiveness, innovation is basic. And to advance in innovation, financing is basic. Faced with this challenge, the Govern will increase aid for innovation by 30%, up to 78 million euros, through a new Catalonia Business Innovation Strategy 2026-2030. But, to boost innovation, not only is financing basic: so is the ecosystem. And ordering and connecting it is the key.

And it is that, even if resources are increased, progress cannot be made if the different actors in the ecosystem move in different directions. With this strategy, the commitment is to align companies, technology centers, universities, and administration towards the same horizon, to build a more ordered, connected, and impact-oriented ecosystem. The will is to redefine the way innovation is supported in Catalonia, with a more stable model, easier for companies to understand, and with an ecosystem that functions in a coordinated manner.

This will comes after the innovation ecosystem has grown over the last decades, with universities, spin-offs, research centers, startups, international hubs, technology centers, large companies, and public organizations. "The challenge we have is to organize ourselves well internally within the Catalan innovation ecosystem. The model is important. We will gain efficiency here," defends the Secretary of Business and Competitiveness and CEO of Acció, Jaume Baró.

"We have to structure ourselves well on how this game system works among all the innovation agents we have in Catalonia," Baró emphasizes, also focusing on technology centers and their role in bringing innovation closer to companies, with Eurecat and Leitat as reference technology centers in Catalonia. This strategy to build a new, more coordinated model has been addressed with the different actors in the ecosystem who, in fact, also see it as a necessity, as Ramon Pastor from Leitat highlighted in an interview: "We must order the innovation system to make it more agile, to avoid duplications, to clarify the roles of each one and to have much more complicity among the different actors. We are in a good situation to face this change and this reflection."

This good moment is what the Govern assumes to give this boost to innovation, as also highlighted by the Minister of Business and Labor, Miquel Sàmper. "Catalonia and Europe are in a good moment. And at the moment when the economy in general terms is working well, that's when you have to do even more," looking already to the future decades.

Thus, according to Sàmper, it is necessary to "bring innovation down to the business world," and doing so requires that other basic pillar: financing. Because, as the executive director of Acció, Joan Romero, points out, innovating and betting on R&D&I usually entails uncertainty for companies: "It may be that the technology does not end up working out or that the product design does not end up working. If there were no public support, innovating would be more difficult for companies."

To facilitate this path, the Govern increases aid by this 30% up to 78 million. And not only does it increase them, but it also organizes them: "Instead of having a multitude of aids from different lines and Ministries, we have made a change of strategy and have unified them," with the aim that companies have a clear map of aids and can also count on their continuity over time.

With this objective, the subsidy lines will focus on three types: those aimed at the experimentation of new technologies; those aimed at companies that have already experimented and now want to incorporate these technologies into their production processes, and research and development projects in which the company itself develops new technologies. At this point, deeptech startups will also play a relevant role, on which the Govern focuses due to their role in advanced technology and innovation.

Within the ecosystem, another actor also stands out: the multinational hubs that decide their innovation strategy from Barcelona. In this sense, the Generalitat sets a specific milestone, with a 2030 horizon: to reach 250 multinational technology hubs in Catalonia, as well as 3,000 startups and 12,000 innovative companies. These will be the pillars of a complex (but ordered) innovation ecosystem through which the Government sets another clear objective: to increase business R&D expenditure from 1.1% of GDP to 2%, thus exceeding the current European average, which stands at 1.49%. "We have to get closer and closer to those who have overtaken us," Sàmper emphasizes. And now is a good time to gain momentum, as Baró highlights: "If we all believe in it and get organized, it is possible."