Since its launch in spring 2018, Valencia Innovation Agency (AVI) has mobilized €243m between public contributions and private sector-incentived investment to develop innovative solutions to key business challenges. President of the Generalitat, Ximo PuigHe chaired the Board of Directors, which approved the annual accounts and annual report for 2022, and also prepared a balance sheet.
Puig confirmed that the AVI has proven to be a “good tool” to strengthen the innovation system, as evidenced by an activity that allowed the development of more than 1,000 projects with the participation of nearly 500 organisations. with the support of social agents. For Consell’s vice-president, promoting knowledge transfer between universities and companies has made it possible to position the Community of Valencia as “one of the European regions making the most innovation progress” with above-average records. It is the EU that placed it first in the autonomous community. However, he stressed that in order to achieve the goals set in this area, it is necessary to keep moving forward and to have the tools that work to achieve them.
Together with Puig, they became president of Innovation, Universities, Science and the Digital Society, Josephine Good; executive vice president of the organization, Andres Garcia Recheas well as social and economic agents and representatives of the Valencian innovation system.
The financing of 164 million Euros provided by the Agency in this period enabled the development of one thousand R&D+i projects in which a total of 525 organizations benefiting from these aids, from companies, universities and research centers to local institutions, cooperated. Organizations and non-profits, according to data provided by Generalitat. “Through these contributions, innovations have been developed that will advance the development and application of personalized and precision medicine, such as preventing and combating nosocomial infections, eliminating the presence of microplastics in wastewater, detecting pathogens and predicting failures in production lines, or, among many other initiatives, dealing with new plagues affecting the Valencian countryside, such as ‘cottonnet’ in critters or ‘xylella fastidiosa’ on almond and olive trees”.
Scientific innovation units
Through its competitive competitive assistance programs, the agency 13 scientific innovation units Configuring a network of 60 innovation representatives in centers of scientific excellence to promote applied and business-oriented research, as well as in business associations and research centers to strengthen the connection of the R&D and D system productive fabric to optimize the transfer of knowledge and technology.
Committed to incorporating and consolidating Public Innovation Procurement (CPI) in local and regional governments as a tool to improve public services and drive innovation in the private sector has been one of AVI’s priority axes during these first five years. Specifically, since 2018, local organizations have initiated nearly thirty PPI procedures, and Generalitat has already completed several, after awarding and awarding tenders with the support of the Agency.
To guarantee the development and implementation of disruptive technologies in the business fabric, the Agency has also promoted the creation of the Inndromeda, in which all the Valencia Community’s competence centers in the field of enabling technologies participate.
According to the balance, the impact of policies to promote R&D+i through tools such as AVI has already been reflected in independent indicators such as the Regional Competitiveness Index published last March. European Commission. According to this report, the Valencian Community has improved its behavior and is actually converging to the Spanish average, surpassing the European Union average for the first time, thanks to progress in innovation.