The Government of the Generalitat de Catalunya and the Catalan Foundation for Research and Innovation have awarded the technology centre Eurecat the National Prize for Knowledge and Innovation Transfer, in recognition of its sustained efforts throughout its first decade of operation to improve business competitiveness and social wellbeing through applied research, technology transfer and innovation.
The National Prize for Knowledge and Innovation Transfer, which is being presented to a technology centre for the first time, has been announced today at an event featuring the participation of the Minister for Research and Universities of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Núria Montserrat Pulido, and the Director-General of the Catalan Foundation for Research and Innovation, Miquel Gómez Clares, where the Eurecat’s Director-General, Xavier López, and its President, Daniel Altimiras have also been present.
“This recognition highlights the impact of the activities, capabilities and technological infrastructures that Eurecat makes available to companies and organisations, which over the past decade have resulted in more than 16,000 innovation projects and services aimed at transforming industrial processes, creating new products and business models, overcoming future challenges and generating new technology-based business fabric,” underlined Eurecat’s Director-General.
A leading multidisciplinary technology centre in Europe
In ten years, Eurecat “has positioned itself as one of Europe’s leading multidisciplinary technology centres for accelerating business innovation with distinctive technological solutions that deliver industrial, social and environmental impact,” added the President of Eurecat.
Specifically, during its first decade of activity, Eurecat has provided services to more than 3,500 small and medium-sized companies and has invested a total of 27 million euros in leading-edge technological infrastructures in Catalonia. Furthermore, its multi-technology, multi-sector and pre-industrial scaling capabilities for new solutions have resulted in 250 active patents and the creation of 12 deep-tech spin-offs by the technology centre.
From this perspective, “Eurecat reinforces a results-orientated model, combining advanced capabilities with agile operations and close collaboration with companies and innovation ecosystems,” emphasised Xavier López.
An efficient and solvent centre to improve the competitiveness of companies.
“Eurecat is also one of the most prominent European technology centres in several fields and leads transformative technologies where five major areas of knowledge converge, linked to digital technologies, cyber-physical systems, materials and manufacturing processes, life and health sciences and technologies, and environmental sciences and technologies,” highlighted the President of Eurecat.
Currently, its activities generate annual revenue exceeding 74 million euros, and it has a team of 850 professionals. It also has a network of more than 500 partners and collaborators across Europe, Asia, Ibero-America and other regions of the world and participates in more than 200 major high-strategic-value collaborative R&D&I projects, through which it addresses global challenges such as sustainability, effective digital transformation and the strengthening of European technological sovereignty.
