R&D&i activities require the use of tools and specific skills to solve the common problems which tend to arise. Amongst these is the issue of how to attain greater levels of transfer between the Universities and Business. Therefore, providing suitable training to the people involved in the process is essential to successfully achieving this goal. As such, companies should encourage their professional staff to extend collaborative relationships with the academic world in order to successfully transform research results into new products, processes or services. They should also work together with Universities to incorporate these specific areas into their training programmes, thereby ensuring that these particular skills are learnt in a more general way.

ADEuropa is a public foundation in Castile and Leon which aims to promote and facilitate the involvement of public and private agents from the region (companies, universities, technology centres, etc.) in international, European and national initiatives and programmes, particularly those associated with R&D&i and international business cooperation.

Amongst the various initiatives developed by ADEuropa is the GESTIDI programme which provides theoretical training in the field of R&D&i for university graduates as well as practical courses for companies and innovative business groups operating in the region.

Through GESTIDI, over a four year period, the ADEuropa foundation is aiming to integrate 120 specialists into the region’s business fabric who will act as facilitators for R&D&i projects. It is hoped that this initiative will act as a catalyst for the development of R&D&i activities in companies and organisations which are actively involved in processes of Innovation in the region.

Agents required for implementation

The implementation of this recommendation requires the involvement of a single company or several companies with similar interests, who can work together to optimise resources. A list of the companies’ needs in terms of R&D&i training should be drawn up in order to see how the Universities could get involved. It would be also be interesting to identify which agents could cater for all the training needs: SMEs, large companies with better structured innovation, other agents involved in the Knowledge Generation System, etc. The coordination of this activity could be assumed by an already existing Andalusian institution.

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1. Mr. Chesbrough. Open innovation business models.
2. http://fundacion.usal.es/estrategia/images/stories/Galeria/Documentos/adeuropa.pdf - Fundación ADEuropa.