The transfer of knowledge generated in universities to industry is one of the pending subjects of the Catalan research system. Finding a commercial application for technologies that can be conceived in a laboratory is a complicated process, as is for companies to gain competitiveness by incorporating new innovations.
To facilitate this, the Generalitat, through Acció, will allocate almost three million euros in direct aid to 21 research and development (R&D) projects focused on information and communication technologies (ICT), biotechnology, photonics, manufacturing, new materials, or nanotechnology. Specifically, each university group will receive up to 160,000 euros to work jointly with a company for three years.
"It is key to design actions to foster collaboration between research entities and companies, thus facilitating the transfer of differential technological knowledge to the market, with the aim of making the Catalan innovation ecosystem much more integrated, with the creation of knowledge and its business application increasingly connected," explains the CEO of Acció, Joan Romero. "Technology plays an increasingly important role in the competitiveness of companies, which need to incorporate it as quickly as possible," he adds.
Research groups from the Universitat de Lleida (UdL), the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), the Universitat de Barcelona (UB), the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), the Universitat Ramon Llull (URL), the Universitat de Girona (UdG), the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), the CERCA network, and the CSIC will be able to participate in this call.
All centers must have the Tecnio accreditation granted by Acció to benefit from the aid. This seal identifies public technology developers in Catalonia for companies. Currently, there are 58 groups that have it. Between 2016 and 2019, the centers with Tecnio accreditation obtained 300 million euros in total income and 90 in R&D contracts with companies. Likewise, their applied research resulted in 61 transferred patents and 17 spin-offs were created.