TECNALIA generates €137 million in turnover in 2023

TECNALIA generates €137 million in turnover in 2023 after increasing technology transfer to companies by 7%.

• Spain's largest research and technological development centre multiplies every euro of the funds it raises in research by 13 and turns it into income for the business sector.
• These results stem from TECNALIA’s R&D&I transfer strategy to companies, which aims to have a dual economic and social impact, whereby its activity helped to generate €746 million GDP in the Basque Country in 2023.
• By 2024, the following are set to be the main technological challenges with growth potential: quantum computing, artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, sustainable mobility and hydrogen, with decarbonisation as a cross-cutting theme
• For this purpose, TECNALIA will allocate €20 million to new developments, equipment and infrastructures, and will increase investment by 54.2 % with respect to 2023.

Donostia- San Sebastián, 8th May 2024. The TECNALIA research and technological development centre generated turnover of €137 million in 2023, as a result of technology transfer to the business sector. In this way, it has managed to multiply every euro it raises in research funds by 13 and turn it into income for the business sector, thus increasing its efficiency in the transfer of technology to the environment. More specifically, this represents an increase of 7.4 % on the previous year and consolidates its leading position as a benchmark R&D&I centre for companies.

These results were presented this morning by the Chairman of TECNALIA, Alex Belaustegui, and the Managing Director, Jesús Valero, who highlighted that “these figures stem from the R&D&I transfer strategy to companies, which aims to have a dual economic and social impact. TECNALIA has become a benchmark as a driver of R&D and we transfer this knowledge to our environment and turn it into results for companies, in the form of technological initiatives, start-ups and patents. It should be borne in mind that society and companies are facing a new scenario marked by the acceleration of change, in which innovation is an opportunity to adapt and anticipate the challenges that lie ahead. Innovation is more strategic than ever”.

This efficiency in transfer means that TECNALIA has transformed the more than €46 million it has raised in public funding in competitive programmes in 2023 - two thirds of which are from international sources - into projects with companies, turning the funds it raises into technologies that generate wealth for the environment.

In this way, it has increased its collaboration with industry by 4 % over the last financial year with the execution of new projects and there are now more than 9,800 companies with which it has worked over its 13 years of history and growth, and its activity contributed to generating €746 million GDP in the Basque Country in 2023.

It is precisely in Europe that TECNALIA has established itself as Spain’s leading private organisation in contracting, participation and project leadership within the European Commission’s Horizon Europe programme and is ranked 15th out of 2,500 European research organisations. In the three years since the programme began, it has gained 140 projects, of which it has led 24. In these projects, it collaborates with a total of 458 Spanish companies and organisations.

€20 million in new investments

The Chairman explained that “TECNALIA is a tool that serves companies and society and our objective is to boost economic and social impact through technological research and innovation, as agents in the transformation of companies and society to adapt them to the challenges of the future, such as smart manufacturing, digital transformation, energy transition, sustainable mobility, health and food, the urban ecosystem and circular economy”.

To make this possible, it will allocate €20 million in the current financial year to new investments, equipment and infrastructures, representing an increase in investment of 54.2 %, which will go towards the expansion of facilities dedicated to smart manufacturing, mobility and digitalisation, and laboratories for fire testing and electrical networks. Valero assures that "the capacity to invest in scientific and technological equipment is fundamental in order to fulfil our objectives. Proof of this is the hydrogen laboratory that we inaugurated last March, which provides companies with pioneering facilities in Europe to advance in the development and implementation of technologies in this field".

• TECNALIA’s has a team of 1,520 experts, which grew by 1.3% in 2023 compared to the previous year. This team is complemented by 52 strategic alliances with research centres and benchmark companies around the world, a network that has increased by 50 % with respect to 2022.
• There is also a team of 104 people working in TECNALIA’s invested companies, which have created 16 % more direct jobs in 2023. TECNALIA has become one of the main creators of quality employment in the area. It should also be noted that, for every job in the centre, another 7.3 jobs are maintained in the Basque Country, which represents a total average of 10,710 jobs.
• In the field of Intellectual Property Sales, the centre is once again among the leading organisations in Europe in terms of Sale of Industrial Property and patent applications. As a result, it has earned revenue of €7.2 million. TECNALIA also holds 741 patents in its portfolio and has a stake in 17 new deeptech start-ups, which represents increased turnover of 22 % with respect to 2022, reaching €9.6 million.

Technological Excellence

2023 was the year in which TECNALIA launched its Decarbonisation Plan, which will enable its direct activity to be carbon neutral by 2024 and to be extended to the supply chain by 2030. In the words of the Managing Director, "this is an exercise of co-responsibility and exemplariness by anticipating the ambition towards climate neutrality two decades ahead of the time horizon set by the European Union in 2050. We must therefore be drivers of a decarbonisation strategy that promotes a low-carbon economy and helps us secure a future”.

• In other fields, it must be highlighted that TECNALIA has collaborated with Petronor, Sidenor, Tubacex, Nortegás or Calcinor on an industrial level to boost their competitiveness through: smart manufacturing by means of monitoring, simulation and self-configuration systems based on digital twins and artificial intelligence; flexible manufacturing, by means of collaborative robotics; and sustainable manufacturing, by adopting new technology that involves eco-design and the introduction of advanced, multi-functional materials, all of which is focused on circularity.
• Another of the big trends of the future is mobility, and in conjunction with Crisalion, we are working on remote and automated vehicles for the mobility of the future and to foster a safe, efficient, intelligent and sustainable sector.
• In energy, an aerial robot has been developed for the maintenance and inspection of wind turbines for the offshore industry. As for hydrogen, a pioneering laboratory has been launched in Donostia-San Sebastian, devoted to the development of technology for hydrogen generation, storage, transport, distribution, use and safety. More than 50 projects are currently under way to carry out research and validation of hydrogen technology, as well as scaling up in order to accelerate its industrialisation.
• In the field of digitalisation, TECNALIA is developing digital technology that can boost new businesses or transform projects that were not highly digital at first but have the potential of being scaled up or diversified. This commitment has led it to collaborate with companies such as Sener, Gestamp, Maser or Norbolsa to redesign their processes and increase their competitiveness through artificial intelligence tools such as: machine learning or deep learning, advanced algorithms, intelligent optimisation, cryptography and blockchain to preserve data security and sovereignty, modelling and data science and applied descriptive, predictive and prescriptive models. TECNALIA also has 5 pioneering cybersecurity laboratories, spanning more than 1,000 m2 to support companies in their digital transformation strategies and facilitate the adoption of 5.0 technologies in a way that is secure and resilient to cyber-attacks.
• The new great emerging technology is quantum computing, in which TECNALIA is creating new technical developments to take advantage of the properties of quantum mechanics and implement hybrid classical-quantum artificial intelligence models, focusing on quantum optimisation algorithms and machine-learning, collaborating with companies such as Quantum Mads, Elewit, Qcentroid or Ayesa.
• In health, TECNALIA promotes healthy ageing and the sustainability of the population through technology and innovation, with the development of new diagnostic platforms and new proposals, such as the regeneration of damaged tissues through innovative 3D bio-printing.

The main technological challenges with growth potential for 2024 include quantum computing, artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, sustainable mobility and hydrogen, with decarbonisation as a cross-cutting theme.

About TECNALIA

TECNALIA is the largest applied research and technological development centre in Spain, a European benchmark and member of the Basque Research and Technology Alliance. We work with companies and institutions to increase their competitiveness, quality of life of people and achieve sustainable growth. We do so thanks to people who are passionate about technology and committed to building a better society. Its main areas of action are: smart manufacturing, digital transformation, energy transition, sustainable mobility, health and food, urban ecosystem and circular economy.

In the latest brand awareness and positioning study carried out by the European Research Survey (ERS) in 2022, TECNALIA tops the list regarding R&D&I brand awareness.