We attended the APTE’s General Assembly, held at PITA (the Almería Science Technology Park), during which the statistical data of the development of APTE-member Science and Technology Parks were presented.
Some 30 representatives of Spanish National Assembly of Techonology Parks – APTE members, with Paco Negre and David Cabedo representing espaitec, met this evening at the Almería Science-Technology Park (PITA) to hold the Association’s second General Assembly.
During this assembly, the parks renewed the Executive Committee, where Paco Negre, General Director of espaitec, continues to be its Treasurer. This new Executive Committee faces the challenge of promoting the Association’s activity in two strategic ways: improving the position of parks within the R&D&I frame regionally, nationally and in Europe, and providing valuable services and solutions to APTE members. The assembly also offered the chance to know the statistical data that the Assembly prepares yearly, which will serve to analyse the development of Spanish science and technology parks. The 2015 data are very positive.
Statistical data summarised
APTE finished 2015 with 69 members: 49 APTE science and technology member parks, that is, fully operating parks; 16 members; 2 collaborative organisations and 2 honorary partner members. The APTE member parks ended 2015 with a total of 7,736 companies and organisations set up on their premises, which is a 19.9% increase compared to the year before. Of all these companies, 314 are companies with foreign capital and 974 are in the incubation stage as they are less than 3 years old. The parks also have 910 organisations between those that have been newly created and those already set up.
Employment has also improved considerably with a 4.8% increase in the number of workers at parts, which means 158,950 workers, of whom 19.6% are qualified workers; that is, 31,243 people specialised in R&D tasks, which is a 0.8% increase compared to 2014. Men represent 61.3% of them, and 38.6% are women. The turnover of park-linked companies has also significantly improved compared to the year before, and reached 24,427 million euros, which is up 9.4% compared to 2014. Also in 2015 the parks accumulates an investment in R&D activities of 1,228 million euros, which represents a 10.4% increase. The production sectors where parks accumulate more companies is still ranked with the ITC coming first with 22.7% of the companies, followed by the sectors of Engineering, Consultancy and Advisors with 18.8%, and the Health and Medicine sector with 6.5%.
During the Assembly, the new edition of the Science and Technologies Parks Directory for 2016 was presented. It is a complete guide of the parks in Spanish and English that contains all the information of interest about the parks: promoter organisations, contact data, the services they offer, infrastructure, photograph gallery, etc. A link of the online version will soon be published.
