An institutional and business delegation from the Valencian town of Ontinyent, led by Mayor Jorge Rodríguez, visited the facilities of the University of Valencia Science Park interested in the potential of this innovation ecosystem and the possibilities of establishing links with the region of the Vall de Albaida, an area of substantially industrial nature where the University also has a campus. With the mayor, the Councilor for Economic Promotion, Juan Pablo Úbeda; the president and secretary of the Business Confederation of the Vall d'Albaida (COEVAL), Javier Cabedo and Vicent Donat; and the president and secretary of the Association of Textile Businessmen of the Valencian Community (ATEVAL), Rafael Lurbe and Felipe Carrasco, also has come.
The government and business representatives of the region have accessed data on the scientific-technological and business activity carried out in the PCUV by 7 research institutes, 2 singular centers and 91 companies. By the hand of Mª Dolores Real, vice-rector of Innovation and Transfer; Carlos Hermenegildo, Vice Chancellor of Research; Jorge Hermosilla, Vice Chancellor of Territory and Society and Joan Enric Ubeda, Director of the Cabinet of the Rector, Marketing and Institutional Communication of the University of Valencia, have known the value of concentrating in the same space research and business. "The current management team of the University of Valencia has a strong commitment to the third mission of the academic institution, which is the transfer of knowledge, based on three main axes: innovation, entrepreneurship and social commitment," said Vice-Chancellor Maria Dolores. Real, who has reiterated the University's commitment to Valencian territorial development "within the framework of a new and necessary productive model that supports our welfare society".
Daniel Ramón, vice president of R & D in human nutrition and health ADM, explains the technological offer of Biopolis
For its part, the mayor of Ontinyent, Jorge Rodríguez, has reiterated the commitment of his government to promote the presence of the Science Park in Ontinyent, raising different possibilities that allow the installation of a headquarters in the city, which would thus help to close the circle of university activities currently taking place on the Ontinyent Campus: teaching, research, culture and sports. In this way, the dimension of innovation would be added to the transfer of knowledge already started with the Institutional Chair that has its headquarters in this university campus.
In this regard, the director of the PCUV, Juan Antonio Raga, and the manager of the University of Valencia Science Park Foundation (FPCUV), Fernando Mª Zárraga, have underlined possible lines of collaboration. On the one hand, they have proposed that the companies already created can develop innovative lines with the advice of the university, specifically their research groups. For this, the FPCUV has proposed to organize "scientific-technological networkings in which the companies pose their challenges and the institutes explain their lines of investigation with the purpose of finding possible transfer links. These meetings have been successful with companies such as Repsol, Aguas de Valencia and Embutidos Martínez, among others, "explained Fernando Mª Zárraga.
Business Seedbed
And, on the other hand, "we can also address the creation in Ontinyent of a space to generate new businesses in areas that have an innovative component. To carry it out, it would be necessary for the town council to promote a program to promote innovative entrepreneurship, to which the Science Park would give support and advice so that it could develop ", Juan Antonio Raga continued.
In the IRTIC the delegation has tested the simulators of machinery for companies
In order to visualize how they work in this innovative center, they visited the facilities of biotechnology Biopolis, a company acquired by the American multinational food ADM and innovation center in probiotics, directed by Daniel Ramon Calvo. Next, they have learned first-hand about the developments of the University Institute of Robotics Research and Information Technology (IRTIC), where they have been received by its director, Professor Marcos Fernández. There they have been able to verify technological developments carried out by the Universitat de València in the field of textiles, which is one of the industrial sectors with the greatest presence in the Vall d'Albaida region.