This investment aims to give a determined impulse to the transfer of knowledge. To this end, 6 measures are proposed with which this challenge of improvement is addressed in all the key agents necessary for scientific knowledge and research results to be applied to the development of new technologies that face the challenges of society.
The 6 measures to be financed to promote the transfer of knowledge to the economy and society are:
New call for grants in competitive competition “Innovation ecosystems based on Cervera Networks of Excellence”: This action is considered as a mechanism to promote the arrival in the economic-social environment of technological capabilities developed through Cervera Grants and their value. In line with the actions carried out by the European Innovation Council, it will support the creation of spaces for promotion, collaboration, exchange of information and the provision or channeling of specialized services for innovation in the priority technologies Cervera in a framework of public-private-social collaboration. La colaboración se producirá entre Centros Tecnológicos de Excelencia Cervera, el tejido productivo, start-up, universidades, organismos públicos y privados de I+D+I, ciudades, AA.PP, agentes sociales, ONG, etc.
Improving the capacities and guidance of Research Results Transfer Offices (OTRIs): it is necessary to strengthen the interface elements between knowledge centres and the productive sector and for OTRIs to be genuine Knowledge Transfer Offices (OTCs).
Calls for Cervera Grants to Technology Centers, research centers and SMEs and mindcaps for the realization of R&D in priority technologies, are of 2 types:
- Aid to Cervera Technology Centres of Excellence, to carry out strategic programs in priority technologies and to promote public-private collaboration, especially with the business sector, becoming strategic technological and innovation partners that generate a significant impact on business investment in R+D+I.
- A new modality of the Call for Cervera Transfer R&D projects, with competitive concurrence and that is extended to the research centers acting as partners. With this call (which combines grants and loans), projects will be carried out in effective collaboration between Technology Centers, Research Agencies and SMEs and medium-capitalization companies to solve technological problems associated with the products or services they prepare or offer competitively in the markets. In this new method of call, it will be possible to reduce the demand for guarantees to the participating companies.
This call will be coordinated with the call for Industrial Doctorates and the Torres Quevedo Investment 4 Program (calls for the recruitment and incorporation of doctors to the company) to strengthen the capacity to absorb the transferred knowledge. It is an exercise of coordination between calls for proposals that will enhance the effect of the measures.
Call for grants to Spanish SMEs with a European seal of excellence: One of the measures to increase public-private collaboration in innovation is the call for aid to start-ups and Spanish SMEs that, having obtained the seal of European excellence, are not mature enough to go to the support of the EIC Accelerator and are provided with similar aid to prevent them from disappearing and can perfect their business model or validate their technology in real environments after its start-up. It is therefore a call for proposals that generates synergies with other European initiatives.
Risk capital measures, co-investment and investment in companies with strategic technologies: two types of actions are proposed:
- Creation of technology transfer funds that valorise and allow the exploitation of public knowledge: promote public-private risk capital initiatives that invest in technology-based companies that are in very early stages of development (seed and start-up) and that, mainly, are based on the knowledge developed in research bodies.
- Direct co-investments with private investors in technology companies, mainly SMEs, through the company INNVIERTE. These co-investments will be made in innovative companies, which leverage new technology in the sector that operates as a source of competitive advantage or develop an innovative product, service or process with the potential to give rise to a sustainable business model that allows the creation of value in the market. They will be Spanish technological and innovative companies, mainly of small and medium size, with high potential for economic growth.
Reinforcement of the call for NEOTEC grants: NEOTEC is a call for support for the creation and consolidation of technology-based companies. They are aid to business projects based on technologies or knowledge developed from the research activity and whose business strategy is based on the development of new technology. The new call model to strengthen the capacities of absorption and generation of knowledge will give priority with more help to those projects that incorporate a person entitled doctor of new recruitment.
