The Basque Country and Flanders, two benchmarks for innovation policies in Catalonia

BarcelonaOne outstanding issue for Catalonia is improving technology transfer, that is, the process of transforming knowledge from scientific and technological research into practical solutions or applications for the market. It is an essential element of innovation and, by extension, improving productivity, the variable that ensures long-term progress. The Basque Country in Spain and Flanders in Belgium are two benchmarks that Catalonia looks to, characterized by having innovative ecosystems focused on industry.

The Productivity and Innovation Initiative (IPI), promoted by the Círculo de Economía (Círculo de Economía) and coordinated by Professor Xavier Vives, takes these two territories as an example. And if anything characterizes them, it is consistency. The Basque Country, for example, which has been among the most innovative regions in the European Commission's Regional Innovation Scoreboard (RIS) for years, and which this year also includes Catalonia, has benefited from a context of institutional stability and financial autonomy over the years. It is an important element for an activity that "is a marathon, not a sprint"", as Vives assures.

The Catalan and Spanish economies need to strengthen their productivity to improve their quality, as evidenced by investment data as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), which is below the European average. However, they are competitive when considering trade surplus data. In short: they earn more from what they sell abroad than what they pay to import, according to a recent study by the opinion group EuropeG, co-directed by former Minister of Economy Antoni Castells and Professor Josep Oliver, based on a study by Joan Ramon Rovira, head of research at the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce.

In the Basque Country, in addition to continuity—a trait that the current government of Salvador Illa seeks to strengthen by leveraging and enhancing measures from previous administrations—they are based on an "industrial-oriented" model, explains Vives. The same is true of Flanders, the Belgian region, one of the leaders in Europe. Former Minister of Economy Andreu Mas-Colell spoke about this a few days ago in an article in the ARA newspaper, as a reference for having "an economy not only based on knowledge but also with a significant component of its own knowledge (intellectual property)."

And in Catalonia, he adds, where there is a first-rate research system promoted by the public authorities, there is a challenge: "That of maximizing the high added value economic activity generated from knowledge in the public research system. These have already been generated, via licenses and company creation (startups). But it would be a shame, as well as irresponsible, not to fully capitalize on the powerful lever of quality knowledge generated in our public laboratories." What we must avoid is that knowledge remains in an academic publication and is exploited by a company from another country, or that it is protected by a patent licensed to a multinational. Flanders, Catalonia is the region with the largest population, where it has grown the most, where unemployment is highest, and where spending on education relative to the gross domestic product (GDP), and spending on R&D&I, especially in the private sector, is the lowest. despite being the one that stands out the most in Spain.

In the Basque Country, the government supports far-reaching public policies in research, development, and innovation (R&D&I). A key element of the ecosystem is the Basque Science, Technology, and Innovation Network (RVCTI), created in 1997 to provide a comprehensive and specialized infrastructure to serve the business community.

There are several actors, from universities to technology centers, cooperative research centers (CICs), companies, and public administrations. The seventeen technology centers that comprise the IPI "act as engines of innovation diffusion and are deeply rooted in the productive fabric," according to the first study on technology transfer conducted by the IPI. Tecnalia, the largest technology center in Spain and Southern Europe, stands out for its ability to respond to the technological challenges of companies. Other centers, such as Ikerlan, which was born from industrial cooperativism, are clear examples of "an extremely pragmatic model where all scientific activity must be connected to a business and commercial application."

The centers are funded 50%-60% through private contracts with companies, 20% with public (capped) base funding—designed to cover a significant portion of the recurring operating costs of scientific and technological centers of excellence—and the remainder with competitive (regional) state funds. There are also specific programs such as Hazitek, with an expected allocation of €95 million this year, and funding for collaborative business R&D projects. Furthermore, the public agency SPRI supports technological and business development through calls tailored to market demand.

Market Orientation

"This approach has consolidated a highly market-oriented ecosystem, based on incremental innovation and stable collaboration between centers and companies, rather than disruptive innovation," explains the IPI report. And despite not having critical scientific infrastructure or a university system as competitive as Catalonia's, it has been able to generate solid technology-based companies.

However, the Basque formula is not without risks. One is a system of technology centers with a high degree of atomization, which points to a future trend of concentration—with fewer centers, but larger, more competitive ones, as is already the case in regions such as Flanders and Germany. On the other hand, the lack of venture capital limits the growth of startups, and the region's demographic stagnation makes it difficult to attract and retain talent.

The Flemish technology transfer system is characterized by a collaborative, non-competitive, and highly specialized structure, "oriented towards responding to the needs of companies and public administrations." The pillars of the model are four large research and innovation centers—IMEC, VITO, VIB, and Flanders Make—each specialized in a different field, with more than 8,000 researchers in total. The universities (KU Leuven, Ghent University, VUB, Hasselt University, and the University of Antwerp) have laboratories and co-creation centers connected to the technology centers that facilitate collaboration between research and business.

Funding is mainly public, complemented by competitive Flemish funds and European projects, as well as income from agreements with large industrial companies. This combination makes it possible to sustain a public-private collaboration model strongly oriented towards applied projects and based on the real demands of industry. Technology transfer projects are defined based on the needs of the companies that actively participate in defining the technological roadmap of the technology centers.

Another key component of the Flemish model is the VLAIO initiative, which acts as a coordinating umbrella for policies supporting innovation and technology transfer. It offers subsidies for entrepreneurship and manages aid programs for collaborative projects between companies and research centers, as well as tools for exploiting results and creating new ones. spin-offsAlso notable are sectoral intermediaries and public-private consortia, such as Spearhead Clusters (Catalisti, Flux50, etc.), which promote challenge-oriented innovation and the joint development of priority technologies by key sectors, among other features of the model.