The Canary Islands want to host the Spanish Space Agency and also the National Center for Volcanology. The President of the Government of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres, yesterday took advantage of the moment in which the Minister of Science and Innovation, Diana Morant, announced the decentralization of scientific institutions and resources to propose the candidacy of the Archipelago to accommodate the aforementioned venues. The minister picked up the glove. From now on, the councils of Tenerife and Gran Canaria take the floor to claim for themselves the location of the Spanish Space Agency (AEE). This same Thursday they will hold plenary sessions in which they plan to approve agreements along these lines and where they will highlight their values. PREPA will be created next year and will have a budget of 4,500 million euros.
The regional government achieves consensus to ratify the Pact for science as a challenge for the future
The Cabildo of Gran Canaria will approve today an institutional declaration that promotes the candidacy of the Canary Islands, and specifically of Gran Canaria, as the future headquarters of the AEE and urges the Government of the Canary Islands to undertake the necessary initiatives to achieve it. It argues that it will generate important advances in scientific and technological significance in the aeronautical and space fields, as well as the development and diversification of its economy and quality employment, and its relevance at a national and international level.
He states that Gran Canaria has the most suitable characteristics, such as its geostrategic location, as it is the best located in aerospace, given its proximity to the equator and Africa, its location in the middle of the Atlantic and its deep relations with Latin America. The island president Antonio Morales, mentions the pool of engineers and researchers provided by the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC) while underlining that “the Maspalomas station was the first on land in Europe, and that it had an enormous role in the arrival of man on the Moon, from the first NASA programs to achieve the goal of reaching our satellite ».
For its part, The CC-PNC group of the Tenerife Cabildo promotes Tenerife as the headquarters of the AEE. The nationalist councilor Félix Fariña will defend a motion today to promote Tenerife’s candidacy to host this organization or some of its headquarters. Fariña points out that “it is necessary for the Cabildo to coordinate urgently with the Government of the Canary Islands, offering the commitment, infrastructures and capacities of the Island and of the island institution itself to include Tenerife and improve and make the Canarian candidacy more competitive” . “We are concerned about the passivity of the PSOE and we cannot allow Tenerife to be left behind,” he points out.
Fariña explains that Tenerife meets very good conditions to host the entity, which “will undoubtedly be a motor for diversification of the Canarian economy, as well as a pole for attracting funds for research.” As strengths, he cites the telecommunications networks deployed by the Cabildo and the research experience of the University of La Laguna (ULL) and the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands (IAC).
Pact for Science
Yesterday, the Canarian president presided over the signing of the Canary Islands Pact for Science and Innovation, a document “that commits those who sign it to work actively to promote research and innovation on the islands, for their transfer to the productive and social fabric and for progress and improved competitiveness. The Minister of Science and Innovation, Diana Morant, as well as representatives of the different political parties, public administrations and civil society that adhere to this initiative were present at the event.
The Pact was promoted by the Ministry of Economy, Knowledge and Employment to bring together the political, economic, technical and social agents best placed to make it a reality. The objective is to work to improve financing and resources in order to reach European investment ratios; promote governance and participation in the R&D&i ecosystem, and bet on talent, promoting scientific careers, vocations at an early age, entrepreneurship or closing the gender gap, among other things.
Torres highlighted the fact that, in the face of key issues for the future of the islands, “there are no fissures between the parties and civil society groups, as occurred with the pandemic, the volcano or the recent fire in Los Realejos.” The head of the Executive considered that “there are almost no words because such a consensus is not easy.”
“We are in a difficult time in which the importance of science has been demonstrated. In the same year of the pandemic, a vaccine is achieved, something that had never happened before in the world. The same with the La Palma volcano, because without science it would not have been known where the eruption would come from and the scientists almost apologized for being 300 meters wrong, when that saved lives. And also with the fire these days in the north of Tenerife, where the drones allowed us to know the hot spots », he stressed.
