The TECNIO Association, established on November 8, was created with the aim of promoting technology transfer and also the connection with the business world in Catalonia. The presentation ceremony took place at the UAB, and among the attendees stand out, the Minister of Research and Universities, Gemma Geis; the Minister of Business and Employment, Roger Torrent; the General Director of Industry and CEO of ACCIÓ, Natàlia Mas; the General Director of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Lluís Juncà; the Rector of the UAB, Javier Lafuente, and the president of the TECNIO Association, Nuera Ventosa.
The inLab FIB, for its part, could not miss this event, since as a TECNIO center since March 2019, constitutes one of the 59 groups that are part of this emerging association. Representing the center were the director of inLab FIB, Ernest Teniente and the technology promoter, Marta Cuatrecasas.
This young entity will be made up of groups from all the Catalan universities, the I-CERCA foundation and the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) and the initiative will be supported by the Government of Catalonia through ACCIÓ, the Government’s agency for business competitiveness. The early partnership will receive a 300,000 euro grant from ACCIÓ over the next three years to strengthen the market vision of these agents and bring them closer to companies.
Out of the 59 research groups that form the TECNIO Association, 15 of them are TECNIO groups of the UPC, all of them endowed with the same accreditation granted by ACCIÓ. This accreditation is based on a seal that identifies the most qualified groups with experience in R+D+I projects, making it easier for companies to access and promote technology transfer in Catalonia. The aforementioned research groups are specialists in various fields and are mainly distributed within the Catalan universities. The projects with which these groups collaborate are large-scale, both at European and national level. Dealing with both SMEs and large Catalan companies.
Roger Torrent stressed that the new association will allow to make “step further” in the cooperation between companies and research agents in Catalonia to “guarantee” that the knowledge generated in universities is transferred to the business world. Gemma Geis also stressed that the great challenge of Catalonia is to improve the capacity for innovation to make it one of the main engines of the economy. As she said: “We have to put talent at the service of the transformation of the country, to develop a more innovative business, which increases competitiveness”.
According to data provided by the government, between 2016 and 2019, centers with TECNIO accreditation obtained 300 million euros in total revenue and 90 million in R+D+I contracts with companies.