News

Cinco Días Awards: Innovation survives despite lacklustre funding

21-11-2017

Innovation has historically marked the difference between the most advanced societies and those who have been left behind. Now, at a time when the pace of change is exponential and the speed of such change is increasingly rapid, those who arrive late for the race will be left out altogether. "We are witnessing a moment of transformation that affects the economy and our way of life. Advances in biology, robotics and digitization are enabling new business models and solutions that were hard to imagine just 10 years ago,” said the Minister of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness, Luis de Guindos, last Thursday, at the tenth edition of the CincoDías Awards for Business Innovation, held at the CaixaForum Madrid. Like previous years, the awards were sponsored by La Caixa and Repsol, with the collaboration of Beon Worldwide as official agency.

Thus, it’s crucial, said the minister, that all economic players get involved in change: from corporations to academic institutions, and of course, public administrations. “The Government is committed to supporting science and R&D+i," continued the minister. For example, through the Center for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI), "whose fundamental objective is to support innovation linked to the business world."

This institution helps startups, invests capital in innovative companies, offering seed capital or private equity. "Capital investment will be one of the most important formulas that will allow us to support businesses and help them compete internationally," said De Guindos. And now, after several years, he said, we are already beginning to see results. "Our companies, universities and research centers have received 2,400 million euros in funding, turning our country into a recipient of funds under the Horizon 2020 plan." Spanish innovation is also active beyond our borders, at centers such as ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor), the European Astral Observatory and CERN in Switzerland, three projects highlighted by the minister.

The role of all actors involved in fostering innovation is therefore fundamental. And the awards given by CincoDías seek to recognize, every year, these advances and pay tribute to innovation in the field of business, universities and corporate social responsibility. For the first time, this edition, there is a prize for Most Outstanding Track Record which went to the Spanish textile giant Inditex for its constant commitment technological innovation.

Zaragoza-based company Libelium won the prize for the Most Innovative Business Initiative in the field of New Technologies for creating an open platform and sensors that can monitor plants, rivers, crops, animals or cities and connect entities and inanimate objects with internet. "Thank you for creating spaces like this, where companies are given the recognition they deserve for good practices that create wealth and jobs through innovation," said the communications director of Libelium, Elena Garcia-Lechuz, who emphasized the need to close the digital gap between what businesses need and what the labor market offers. "If  we don’t act soon, we will jeopardize the future," she warned.

The award for the Most Innovative Business Initiative in Association with a University was given to BeOnChip, a spin-off of the University of Zaragoza, for the development of microfluidic devices for cell culture in biomimetic systems. "We need to facilitate the work of researchers and foster a real transfer of knowledge from our universities to the productive sector," said Rosa Monge, head of for R&D at the company.

The award for the Most Innovative Business Initiative in the field of Corporate Social Responsibility went to Via Celere for its project Espacio Fácil (Easy Space), designed to help people with intellectual disabilities.This a center for research, evaluation, design and adaptation of buildings and aims to transform them into understandable and accessible spaces that may be easily navigated by anyone. The group's president, Juan Antonio Gómez-Pintado, expressed his gratitude to collaborators Afanias, La Salle University and especially the architect Berta Brusilovsky, "the person who has given most and  spent longer than anyone else researching this issue".

Clearly, no sector is immune from disruption: from production to after-sales services and continuous and increasingly tailored interaction with customers. But are companies and their managers ready for the new era of continuous innovation? That’s the very question that Country Manager for Google Spain and Portugal, Fuencisla Clemares, asked in her address to the awards ceremony. The executive noted that whereas her CEO had previously said that they had to focus primarily on mobile, what’s now "paramount is artificial intelligence". The Google manager said that what’s needed isn’t a huge investment, but rather, a better understanding of the technology. She also referred to culture change required within organizations because "either we are able to break down barriers between companies or then all this is futile." According to Clemares, "every ten years there is a great technological revolution." The first came in the eighties, with the appearance of computers in businesses. The second great change came in the nineties, with the emergence of Internet and companies like Amazon and Google. The third revolution didn’t come until 2007, with the launch of the first iPhone.

Now comes the fourth, and to face it squarely, we need to have the necessary infrastructure and investment in place, areas where Spain remains weak. As is clear from the latest annual report of the Cotec Foundation, published five months ago, if this trend is not urgently addressed, Spain will be in no position to play a disruptive part in the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. The data of the report show that the cumulative cuts since 2010, of 50%, have been much higher than those that were initially announced at the time (30%). This is because the reduction of the amounts announced in the Budget has been joined by negative levels of budget execution, which in 2016 have reached a historic low, delaying the implementation of various projects and initiatives.

Thus, the gap between Spain and the rest of the EU is widening. While most EU countries now invest 25% more in R&D than they did before the economic crisis, the figure in Spain is still 10 percentage points below the figures for 2008. And according to the data, it’s not only the public sector that’s lagging behind. In Spain, about half of innovative production system is private, and the efforts of Spanish companies in this area, compared with other European counterparts, is lacklustre. The figures speak for themselves: in Spain companies devote 52% of total expenditure to R&D, compared to 63% elsewhere in the European Union.

The report notes that we merely have to look at the number of patents registered in Spain, which has fallen to below 2008 levels. In terms of applications for for European patents per million inhabitants, the figure for Spain is 32, compared to 162 in France and 307 in Germany. Clearly, there is still a considerable way to go.

 

Source: Cinco Días

Back to news

Go to the top of the page