APTE

The Association of Science and Technology Parks of Spain (APTE) is a non-profit association whose main objective is to collaborate, through the promotion and dissemination of science and technology parks, to the renewal and diversification of productive activity, technological progress and economic development.

It is located in the headquarters of the Málaga TechPark and was created in 1989 by the managers of the first 6 parks that emerged in Spain. It is an associate member of the International Association of Science and Technology Parks and Areas of Innovation (IASP).

It currently has 61 members spread throughout the Spanish geography. Fifty-three of them are Member Parks, i.e., fully operational, 4 are Affiliates in the process of development and 4 are Collaborator members.

21 of these parks are promoted by universities and more than 40 Spanish universities collaborate with all of them. At the end of 2024, these parks were home to 6,000 entities with a turnover of 31,576 million euros. These companies provide employment to 168,462 people, of which 42,170 are dedicated to R&D tasks.

Since its constitution, the Association of Science and Technology Parks of Spain has always worked with a clear objective: to turn science and technology parks into key parts of the Spanish innovation system.

To this end, the Association has organized itself into a large network of networks, each with its own work plan and always with common goals in mind. In this sense, APTE has a network that brings together the directors of the science and technology parks and another network that works with the technology transfer technicians of the parks and their companies and that also deals with putting the scientific world inside and outside the parks in contact with the business fabric of the parks.

In these more than 3 decades of experience we have achieved a boom in the creation of parks in Spain, since it has been demonstrated that the construction of a park in a region usually gives a great boost to the economy of the area and that is why 15 of the 17 autonomous communities already have at least one park.

This boost usually translates into an increase in the number of jobs, most of which are highly skilled, an improvement in the quality of employment, the dynamization of business sectors, the attraction of capital, the creation of technology-based companies, an increase in investment in R&D, in short, it diversifies the economy and usually creates a network of service companies around the park that radically changes the initial structure of the area’s economy.