45% Of Cotec experts portends a difficult future in r & d in Spain

On July 11, the Cotec Foundation presented its '2013 report on technology and innovation in Spain' in Madrid. This document collects and analyzes the data from r & d and innovation in Spain, compared to the rest of the world, and includes views of various experts in the field with a section specially devoted to estimates of the future.

The director general of Cotec, Juan Mulet, and Assistant Director-general, Federico Baeza, were responsible for reporting on the difficult situation facing innovation in Spain. The most worrying situation is the decline in current expenditure in r & d in Spain, which dropped by 2.4% in total in 2011. In addition, the number of business researchers is reduced each year around 1%, confirming a crisis that is affecting the research activity of the companies directly.

"According to INE data, since the beginning of the crisis in Spain, in 2008, until 2011, last year for which we have data, the number of companies with innovative activities was reduced by 36%. A rapid decline that experts consulted by Cotec, is going to continue to deteriorate in the coming years, so it followed so soon the number of Spanish companies with r & d and innovation activities will be placed in the middle of which there were at the beginning of the crisis", said Mulet.

Federico Baeza, Deputy Director general of Cotec and Juan Mulet, general director of Cotec.

According to the report, the total expenditure on r & d in Spain in 2011 was 14.184 million euros, i.e., 1.33% of the GDP, representing a fall of 2.8% compared to 2010. For the first time, the fall extends to all sectors and exceeds 0.8% of which are experienced in 2009. Administration reduced its spending on r & d in 2011 by 5.7%, 2.9% higher education and enterprises by 1.5%.

In addition, Cotec also advises that in 2011 the r & d activity was in Spain to a total of 215.079 people in full-time equivalent, of which 60.6% were researchers, i.e. a 130.235 people. Those most affected by the economic situation in which Spain is immersed are public researchers whose numbers were reduced for the first time in 2011, since they have suffered a fall of 4.4 percent, standing at 85.078. The private sector has been least affected, with a fall of 1.1% to 44.915 researchers.

Source: INE. Statistics on r & d 2012.

The director general of Cotec believes that it will be very difficult to regain the Spanish system of innovation that so much effort and cost years consolidating. Juan Mulet warned of the danger posed to lose ten years of progress and progress in Spain, since competitiveness will be very impaired as a consequence of these falls. "The most surprising thing is that this destruction of the innovative country business is happening without any significant social reaction, probably because our society is not yet aware of the importance of innovation to secure our economic growth and our social well-being." And this is, probably, that we lived in a dream of wealth based on a speculative production model and that it not generated value, but it allowed us to acquire other countries technology and innovation we needed to maintain our high levels of quality of life,"said Mulet.

The contribution of the autonomous communities to the total expenditure of Spanish r & d in 2011 is maintained with respect to previous years: Madrid (26.5%), Catalonia (21.9%), Andalusia (11.6%), Basque country (9.9%), Comunidad Valenciana (7.4%), adding a total of 77.3 percent of national spending.

Source: ' statistics on activities in scientific research and technological development (r & d), indicators basic 2012' and 'Regional accounts of Spain', INE (2012) and elaboration by Cotec.

Note the effort of Navarre and the Basque country, since they were only autonomous communities which have increased by seven and three hundredths of point respectively in 2011. Madrid, on the other hand, falls within eight cents to below 2% while Catalonia drops a tenth. The analysis of the other communities shows a fall widespread in r & d in 2011.

The comparison established Cotec report warns of stagnation in terms of advance from Europe since 2010. This year both the expenditure on r & d as the Spanish GDP fell around 1% while that in the whole of the five main European countries these indicators grew 2.7% and 3.4% respectively.

Source: ' Main Science and Technology Indicators. Volume 2012/2'. OECD [2013] and elaboration by Cotec.

These data highlight a delay in recovery with respect to Europe. While the last collected data belong to 2010, Cotec experts estimate that the loss has continued for three years while neighbouring countries are still recovering.

Experts in the field have planted a disheartening panorama with a bad assessment of the current situation in Spain and a pessimistic view as to future developments, which is reflected in the synthetic index of perception of Cotec for 2013, which has continued falling to historic value more under the 0,841.

Low commitment of financial and human resources for innovation in enterprises, the lack of culture in financial markets in Spanish for the financing of innovation or the role of insufficient support for research, technological development and innovation policy, are some of the causes which highlighted more than three fourth parts of the experts. According to the report, one of the biggest problems is the public funding.

45% Of experts has a pessimistic feeling compared to 13% of opinions of improvement.

45% Of Cotec experts believed that Spain will continue to worsen their data, compared with 13% which is considered optimistic about the possibilities for improvement of the country. The trend that most experts consider it deteriorates is, like last year, the reference to the availability of public funds for the promotion of r & d. The few positive aspects that are in the report include the improvement of exports of capital goods and the reduction of school failure.