The Xunta will finance 11.7 million small and medium enterprises developing research and development for the Rozas pillar

The Xunta will finance with almost 12 million euros — 11.7 to be exact — to small and medium enterprises and consortia for the development of tailor-made solutions leading companies of the Galician aerospace center, located in Rozas. This was announced this Friday by the First Vice President and Minister of Economy of Xunta, Francisco Conde, during a meeting held in House of Galicia in Madridto present the development and research programs of Airbus, Avincis and Telespazio, strategic partners of the mentioned pole.

Conde explained that this public-private collaboration initiative — included in the Retech (Territorial Networks of Technological Specialization) program — will have two calls, this year and next, and he focused on the novelty of its design, stressing that it goes beyond subsidies for use. They will mobilize private investment (50%) and there will be leading companies that will propose what their challenges are, technological needs which they need to cover, so that SMEs and knowledge centers — including universities — form consortia that develop the required solutions.

In other words, the Xunta will repeat the formula it used in 2015 to launch the Galician Aerospace Pole. Conde explained the “very innovative mechanism of public procurement”, a competitive process in which the Xunta set specific challenges for which the leading companies in the sector provided a practical solution by applying their research and development programs.

It was from this process that the projects that will now see the light of day were born, and were developed by Airbus, Avincis or Telespazio, but also ecosystem of technology companiesless, which cooperate in launching initiatives that will put at the service of the administration — and in this second phase, also of private companies and, consequently, citizens — practical use of technologies such as drones to, among other things, take water samples in reservoirs, prevent and control forest fires or respond to health emergencies (such as heart problems) on the Camino de Santiago.

“The innovative procurement contract seeks to create solutions that do not exist today,” summarized José Antonio Urbano, head of engineering at Airbus UAS and one of the conference participants. Together with the CEOs of Avincis and Telespazio, Ángel Roder and Carlos Fernández de la Peña, they detailed their companies’ experiences in launching the hub and the projects they are developing there, along with other companies from the aerospace and technology ecosystem that have been established there in the last eight years, among them Centum, Gradiant, Sixtema or the Technological Institute of Galicia.

From rescue to fire

We are working with all these companies — Conde and the director of the Galician Innovation Agency, Patricia Argerey — pointed out that they should apply the use of drones for new public servicessuch as fire prevention, fishing supervision, rescue or emergency health care.

The vice president of Xunte stressed that the goal of the instruments that have been set up in recent years develop technologies in the field of aviation which enable “solving challenges, both in the sector and in public administration when providing their services to the public”. In this regard, he reminded that since 2015, when this strategy was launched, almost 500 million euros of public-private investments have been mobilized, to which another 330 million will be added in the second phase (from 2021 to 2026), the practical results of which will are beginning to be seen next year, since the development phase of the project will end this year.

WITH 70 SMEs and knowledge centers that create technology own in the aviation segment in Galicia, Conde described as “fundamental” to take advantage of the opportunity offered by European funds so that companies can develop more programs, and European funding really fulfills its function of “transforming” the industrial fabric of the territory.

Galicia, the European benchmark

The head of economy, industry and innovation Xunte also referred to the fact that the community, with the work done in recent years in the field of aviation and the progress achieved in the provision of infrastructure, has become a European benchmark. He cited the Aeroportada Research Center (CIAR) of Rozas, for example, examination center in which there is an industrial park with two hangars, but also a control tower with the latest technology and the most advanced equipment in Europe for flight simulation, in cooperation with CDTI (Center for Technological Development and Innovation).

He also reminded that the Xunta had just awarded 5G telecommunication system and cyber security Telefónica and GMV and emphasized that these technologies will continue to be complemented by the Avincis and Telespazio projects for the development of advanced infrastructures for monitoring biodiversity; and Airbus, with the installation of new equipment in Galicia, such as one of Rozas’ hangars and a center of excellence in R+D+i.