Digitalisation is becoming more and more important, not so much as a challenge, but as a need, in all areas, to adapt to the new demands of society and to the incessant and ever faster waves of innovation.
This is a pending issue that affects horizontally all the agents of an innovation system and its approval depends on our being considered a competitive country.
Further progress on the right path requires support for the digitisation of businesses and the general public. Specifically, these areas constitute the object of the activity and research of almost 23% of the more than 7,700 entities located in the Spanish science and technology parks, entities that are also considered the most innovative in our country.
However, in the process of ensuring that SMEs develop and apply advances in digitalisation and that these advances reach the public, the intermediation of the agents facilitating these activities is necessary. In other words, these agents are the means to achieve the end and I am referring to the managing bodies of science and technology parks, universities, technology centres and other bodies that carry out support activities and promote collaboration between the scientific and business worlds.
This consideration should not only be a matter of course, but should also be supported by this intermediation work and this support should also be considered and included as an instrument and a measure in the Digital Strategy for an Intelligent Spain.
That is why our Association is working on the implementation of cooperation mechanisms with all those organizations that have a leading role in achieving the objectives of this Strategy, to make them see that facilitating agents such as science and technology parks play a key role in pursuit of these objectives and that therefore, neither their activity nor that of their companies and entities should be left out of the measures leading to the digital transformation of our country.
And coinciding with the beginning of the new academic year, I take advantage of the similarity with it and remember that the sum of all of them is essential in order not to leave the subject of digitalisation until September.
Felipe Romera Lubias
President of APTE
