The Council of Tenerife presented this Monday ‘Catalogue of Infrastructures for Innovation and Technology in Tenerife’, a compilation that is made available to the scientific community, researchers, administrations and companies that want to establish themselves in Tenerife or already work on the island.
The details were announced by the First Vice President and Minister of Innovation, Enrique Arriaga, who was accompanied by the Island Director of Innovation, María Aránzazu Artal, and the CEO of the Science and Technology Park, Raquel Lucía Pérez Brito.
The catalog details information on 21 centers and 98 infrastructures which include the different institutes, headquarters and buildings, from the White Room to the Wind Tunnel, from supercomputers to geochemistry laboratories.
Enrique Arriaga stressed that “this catalog is a basic tool to value all the technological infrastructures that exist on the island, providing researchers and companies dedicated to science and innovation with a detailed directory of all the centers, buildings, laboratories, companies private companies and institutes dedicated to research, and their equipment, a job that has taken almost two years”.
Arriaga added that the objectives are to publicize and value the research carried out in Tenerife, offer resources, top-level and high-cost equipment) and provide services to companies and researchers.
The corporation points out in a note that the creation of synergies, exchange of knowledge and contacts is thus encouraged, configuring a true R&D ecosystem.
For her part, the island director of Innovation, María Aránzazu Artal, framed the ‘Infrastructure Catalog in the Innovation Master Plan’, which aims to promote an innovative ecosystem on the island of Tenerife.
Artal therefore recalled the four axes on which it is based, which are “renewable energies, whose main driver is ITER, gaming and the audiovisual sector; the technology sector, supported by the PCTT and R&D&i, axis through which this Catalog of Infrastructures has become a reality”.
In this valuable tool, he highlighted, “innovation initiatives and projects carried out in recent years by the main existing players on the island of Tenerife are compiled”.
The CEO of the Science and Technology Park of Tenerife, PCTTRaquel Lucía Pérez Brito, detailed the infrastructures that the PCTT has and the number of companies that already work in said facilities.
Thus, the most emblematic buildings are the NanoTec and the IACTec, which have clean rooms and specific laboratories.
“In addition to Arquimea, the clean room is already being used by another company that was born from a spinoff of the University of Laguna, Wooptix, an example of knowledge transfer to society,” said Pérez Brito, who announced another new clean room in the pipeline.
WORK TOOL
Companies that want to establish themselves in Tenerife will now be able to know what spaces, equipment and instrumentation they have according to the area of activity they develop, but the catalog also allows local companies and research entities to connect with each other, learn about resources that can be shared and rationalize investments .
In this way, on the one hand, the technological development of the island is facilitated and innovation has more weight in the production system, and on the other hand, the development of local projects and companies.
The catalog also makes a compendium of what innovation projects are already under development in the different spaces.
“We have been pleasantly surprised -confessed Enrique Arriaga-, because there is a lot of science, very interesting projects and equipment available on the island that was not used to sell the destination as a benchmark for the innovation business ecosystem. For example, one of The companies that are growing the most at the moment, Arquimea Research Center, which needed a building with clean rooms for their project, which is unusual, found it in Tenerife and settled here”.
The Minister of Innovation recalled that “one of the main objectives for economic diversification has to be innovation and science as great generators of jobs, alternative niches to tourism, and the Cabildo de Tenerife is working on this through all the actions included in the Master Plan for Innovation”.
Specifically, it is about betting on innovation as a means of economic diversification in line with the SDGs “and attracting innovative companies is essential in this regard,” he stressed.
Arriaga also highlighted that “the catalog reflects the number of projects that are being developed in Tenerife and their high level, which will help many companies to opt for Tenerife as a place to settle, since these first-class centers and infrastructures that are within their reach, are added to other attractions of the island such as tax incentives, legal certainty, the climate, its geographical location or high connectivity”.
