NET4SOCIETY Research Directory

Since 1990, the Cotec Foundation has been working at the service of technological innovation among Spanish
companies to sensitize society on the values of scientific and technological knowledge and research. In fulfilling
this mission, Cotec has served as an observatory of R&D&I in Spain, and has provided analysis and advice on
innovation, technology and economy.

Through multiple initiatives - events, conferences, publications, reports, advice, etc. -, Cotec has become a
Spanish reference institution in the field of innovation. Due to its independent nature, it has been able to
indicate the shortcomings of the innovation system in Spain and make proposals for improvement. In this sense,
our studies and proposals have influenced the design of national and regional science and technology policies, as
well as the growing business and social sensitivity towards innovation.

Currently, the Board of Trustees of Cotec has nearly 100 members, presided by H.M. the King. It is mainly
composed by major Spanish and global business powers, including several Spanish companies listed on the Ibex-
35. Nevertheless, among its members are also included SMEs, social organizations, and public bodies or
administrations at regional and local level. To give an international character to the impulse of innovation, in
2001 Cotec Italia was created, followed by Cotec Portugal in 2003.

In 2015, Cotec decided to take on new challenges and become a true agent of change. It started using innovation
as an engine of growth for SMEs, as well as expanding its analytical capacity to new areas of interest, such as
social innovation, educational innovation or the financial environment of innovation. The intention was to
provoke structural transformations that contribute to the development of the economy and society.

In this transition, the innovation was redefined by Cotec as every change (not only technological), based on
knowledge (not just scientific) that produces value (not only economic). With this expanded interpretation of
the concept of innovation we aspire to remind society that we can all be in some way innovators.

In order to promote innovation from a more complete, general and strategic perspective, the foundation has
carried out and developed a variety of activities and events to support and promote more inclusive, innovative
and reflective European societies where new technologies and tools will affect and modify the models of
education, employment, business and administrative development, and where innovation in all its areas will play
an essential role in key specific transitions:
- From Analog to Digital
- From Linear to Circular
- From Tangible to Intangible

In this sense, in 2016 we started a series of events called “Los Imperdibles”, trying to bring innovation closer to
the general public through different experiences, perspectives and themes. These collection of unique events
with a careful staging, explore the impact of innovation in our lives from a dynamic and participative
perspective.

This year our event #Imperdible_03 was focused on “Innovation and Cities”, where we showed the public some
of the innovations that have been developed in recent years, and explored, from the innovation perspective, the
history of cities, analyzing their past, present and future.

In addition, Cotec participates as the co-organizer of the Cotec Europe Summit, in which the heads of state of
Portugal, Spain and Italy are the protagonists. The key point in its agenda reflects the common challenges and
opportunities of the countries of southern Europe in terms of innovation. Some of the topics of past editions
were related to the rethinking of the alliance between men and machines; or the situation and evaluation of the
circular economy, which represents a radical change in the current production and consumption systems.

Cotec is currently participating in a project within Social Challenge 6, EURITO, whose objective is to identify,
test and validate a new generation of more relevant, inclusive and updated innovation indicators (which
complement the existing ones), based on the extraction and massive analysis of data, improving the impact and
development of R&D&I policies in Europe. The aim is to incorporate the most advanced existing methodologies,
tools and technologies (such as big data, artificial intelligence, automatic learning and data visualization) into
the measurement and study of innovation, so that they allow a better description -real, updated and
objectively- of the performance and execution of R&D&I phenomena and policies. (Period: January 2018 to
December 2020).