The Catalan clusters have captured 32% of the first line of aid from the Next Generation Funds aimed at this type of business groups in Spain. According to calculations of actionan agency that depends on the Generalitat of Catalunyathe line Innovative Business Groups (AEI) summoned by the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism of the Spanish Government has distributed 6.3 million euros among 16 of these organizations in Catalonia.
“With this aid, the member companies of the clusters will promote projects such as the robotization of the textile sector, the digitization of pigs, the development of ‘blockchain’ technology to prevent fraud in the wine world or the application of artificial intelligence (AI) in the mental illness treatment or to analyze the experience in tourist facilities”, defends Acció in a statement, which also highlights lithium batteries, 3D vision or ‘machine learning’ as areas of work.
Among the benefited business groups are Modaccwhich is dedicated to the fashion sector; Solartys (to solar energy); Ciac (automotive); indescat (to sport); the Packaging Cluster or the Digital Clusteramong others.
“Results like these show that Catalonia has a very powerful cluster approach that stands out in Europe and in the Spanish State”, values the General Director of Industry and CEO of Acció, Natalia Mas i Guix. “The clusters will play a key role in the distribution of the Next Generation funds due to their ability to attract the companies that are part of them and because they are the best possible space to respond to the collective challenges that we have to face as a society and to transform the Catalan and European production model”, he adds.
two thousand companies
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This institution takes the opportunity to point out that 14 of the clusters that have received aid are part of the Acció network, a program that covers a total of 2,300 companies, most of them small and medium-sized (almost 67%), 10% large companies, a 7% start-ups and about 9%, research centers, universities and “knowledge providers”.
A cluster is, in fact, a group of companies from the same sector and agents from their environment (such as universities and technology centers) that share resources, cooperate and project themselves internationally.