Skolkovo has had its second visit in three months by a Spanish science park delegation. After Luis Sanz, the Director General of the International Association of Science Parks and Areas of Innovation, took part in June’s Startup Village, the Foundation was visited this week by the management of Parque Tecnologico de Andalucía, led by Director General Felipe Romera, who is also the president of the Spanish association of science parks.
On the first day of the visit Skolkovo Technopark and Parque Tecnologico de Andalucía (PTA) signed a cooperation agreement.
In an interview to Sk.ru, Felipe Romera noted that the experience of Spanish science parks, including that of Parque Tecnologico de Andalucía, can be of immense value to Skolkovo. Twenty-one years ago, when PTA was created, all investment in the project came from the government. Two decades later, the government has considerably revised its investment approach, and now every euro from state coffers received by PTA is matched by four euros of private investment.
Felipe Romera believes that Malaga, the southern Spanish city that is home to PTA, will become a “window to Skolkovo.”
Romera told sk.ru that he wants Russian companies to be as comfortable at PTA as Russian tourists on the Costa del Sol
PTA works closely the University of Malaga, which caters to 36,500 students. In contrast to the Skolkovo ecosystem, the university was created earlier than the Technopark and served as a natural source of new high-tech startups.
Nowadays, every tenth euro contributed to the economy of Andalusia is generated by PTA resident companies.
Below are some of the key excerpts from the interview.
-Your science park is located in Malaga. Outside Spain the image of Andalusia is consistent with the words of the Julio Iglesias song about “the land of beautiful women, blood and sun.” The city’s association with high-tech innovation is less obvious. What are the strengths of PTA?
-We find that there are three key advantages. First, international networks of science park operators are located with us: In particular, the headquarters of International Association of Science Parks and the Spanish association of science parks as well as several others.
Historically, Andalusia did not have its own technological base, but when the science park came into the territory, it formed a technological core. The science park managed to influence the culture of the local population, which until recently did not show any interest in innovations. The situation has changed for the better. This is the second factor.
Third, we call ourselves Parque del Sol, or “sunshine park.” With this we assume that our natural competitive advantage is the Mediterranean climate and the quality of life, which is typical for this region. Malaga is the capital of the tourism industry around the Costa del Sol. We have visitors and tourists from all over the world, including Russia. Practice shows that those who chose us as their holiday destination sooner or later seek the opportunity to work in Andalusia. We’re ready to offer that possibility. And we can help with this, when it comes to innovation entrepreneurship. By the way, the combined turnover of the companies created by our science park is currently 1.5 billion euros – which is 11% of Andalusian GDP. Creative people wish to live in a good climate on the shore of a warm sea. This also explains the presence of transnational companies and their divisions in Malaga.
To summarize, these three factors: the presence of international organizations, the change of mentality toward innovations, and the international corporations that work here – all of this attracts new talent.
- How did it come to pass that the International Association of Science Parks (IASP) chose Andalusia as its headquarters and not, for example, London or Silicon Valley?
-First, Parque Tecnologico de Andalucia was created. In 1995, an international competition was announced to host the headquarters of IASP. Prior to that there was no one place for the administrative body of the Association. We made our proposal and proved that Malaga has all the necessary prerequisites to host an international association - and at a significantly lower cost than in some of the capital cities of the world. The final vote took place in Beijing and the members were in support of Malaga. Please take into account that in 1995 our science park tool its first steps. The victory of Malaga in the competition brought worldwide recognition to our project.
-Skolkovo Technopark is a member of IASP and, as Luis Sanz mentioned in his interview for SkReview, his organization sees Skolkovo as ”a very ambitious project, which is a well-known brand in the world.” What kinds of cooperation possibilities do you see with Skolkovo Technopark?
-We, as a technopark, have decided that for us Russia is an excellent place to work and has a big future. For the last three years we have had the goal to be present in Russia. And so we have found our way to Skolkovo Foundation, which seemed like a very attractive partner for us. Besides, Skolkovo by its structure is very similar to our project, even the size of our territories is nearly the same – 400 hectares.
On the other hand, we also see that Russia pays attention to Spain as well, which became especially apparent during the year of friendship between Russia and Spain. By the way, that was also a time when the Russian government showed a great deal of interest in the field of science parks. I took part in those discussions. And at that time we decided that although it is clear that there are many factors that separate us – distance, language - but in terms of culture Russians and Spaniards are very similar. I noticed that 36 years ago, when I visited Moscow for the first time.
As a result, our task in this respect was in making Malaga as attractive to Russian companies as it is for Russian tourists: so that they would feel just as comfortable here. Partially, this implies the necessity to raise Skolkovo’s visibility in Spain, to turn Andalusia into a window to Skolkovo. At the same time, we would like for Skolkovo to become a similar window to Malaga.