Catalonia and Barcelona
Ideal for innovation
Investment in R&D
Catalonia is Spain’s major science laboratory, dedicating over 1.4% of GDP to R&D, its output is a quarter of the nation’s total, and nearly 1% of world production - on a par with Finland and Scotland. Nature magazine coined the phrase “Catalan Scientific Power” in tribute to a society in the forefront of such fields as medical research, indeed it plays host to six of Spain’s leading clinical research units.
Innovation in enterprise
With under 20% of state spending, Catalan enterprise still accounts for nearly 22% of companies responsible for innovation with the figure even higher among SMEs. Catalonia has focused above all on the pharma industry, bio-tech, biomedicine, medical technologies, ICTs, multimedia and audiovisual sectors.
Science parks
Catalonia has a number of leading high-tech parks linked to prestigious universities and medical facilities, such as: Barcelona Science Park (BSP), Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (BBRP), UAB Science and Technology Park (BIOCAMPUS), and August Pi i Sunyer Institute for Biomedical Research (APSIBR).
Technology centres
TECNIO is the name given by ACC1Ó to a network comprising over 100 technology transfer centres and experts from a range of associated sectors with an aim to drive competition and internationalisation of firms working in Catalonia.
Cutting edge scientific facilities
Catalonia boasts several state of the art scientific facilities including the Synchrotron ALBA (the first particle accelerator in Southern Europe), MareNostrum (Spain's premium supercomputer and one Europe's foremost), IDIADA, a state of the art sytem used in the automotive industry, and the National Microelectronics Centre (Spain's largest public centre for microelectronics).
