The Eurecat technology centre has registered 231 patents for highly innovative technologies in the industrial, digital, biotechnology and sustainability areas in 2024, a 15 percent increase over 2023 in its industrial property portfolio.
For the second year in a row, Eurecat has been at the Science for Industry (S4i) fair, a major meeting point for technology transfer to businesses in Spain and Europe held in Madrid, where as pointed out by Àngel Garcia, Eurecat’s director of Valorisation, it has showcased “our commitment to stepping up the impact of the technology centre’s constant efforts in innovation and the return on investment, whether by licensing technology or through setting up new tech firms, to generate value and competitiveness.”
Between 2022 and 2024, Eurecat raised €2.7 million in capital rounds for its spin-off portfolio and in 2024 it also made headway in validating various technologies geared towards setting up new tech-based firms with the support of industrial and financial partners. Likewise, Eurecat has entered into regular cooperation agreements with other domestic and international institutions and has backed special initiatives such as the centre for industrial decarbonisation in Catalonia.
The purpose of taking part in the S4i fair “is to make businesses aware of the technologies owned by Eurecat and present success stories which explain how they are being transferred through spin-offs, licences or access rights while also forging contacts with prospective customers for these technologies and investors who might be interested in getting involved in the capital rounds of Eurecat spin-offs and in other initiatives which are under consideration over the medium term,” says Àngel Garcia.
“Valorisation is how Eurecat helps to add value to the technology developed by the technology centre through licensing and setting up spin-offs as a result of its ongoing applied research and technological innovation.”
Five spin-offs in the last three and a half years
Eurecat has closed 2024 with ten spin-offs, five of which have been set up in the last three and a half years, in areas such as digitalising healthcare and medical devices, textile production, 3D printing and information and communication technologies in partnership with other undertakings as one of its main technology transfer activities.
Likewise, 98 of Eurecat’s patents are licensed and 44 are under negotiation or in use in R&D and innovation services which may end up in a licence. Moreover, almost 30 percent of the patents are jointly owned with interested businesses which are exploiting or will exploit them under a licensing agreement.
Valorisation, a lever for transferring technology to enterprises
Eurecat’s Valorisation area “leads the process of identifying technological assets to make them more accessible to the market through an analysis and maturation process which ends with licensing the technology to a third party or setting up a tech-based company to ensure that the resulting return is fed back into innovation operations,” notes Laura López, Eurecat’s head of Scouting.
All this is made possible because “Eurecat pays special attention to and invests resources in its protection strategy for these technological assets to safeguard the intellectual and industrial property (IP) rights which enable them to be valorised when they are transferred,” adds Cristina Arilla, head of the technology centre’s Industrial Property unit.
In addition to identifying assets and furnishing them with IP protection, Eurecat’s valorisation initiatives also encompass market validation and research, helping with asset packaging, concluding pilot agreements with early adopters and, lastly, transferring them to a third party.
