Valencia: A City of Innovation and Creativity

Valencia is a city that offers a favourable environment for the setting up of the most advanced businesses and activities, especially those concerned with the Economics of Information, and which make intensive use of creativity, information and knowledge as basic inputs:

·Because of a set of conditions conducive to the generation and diffusion of innovation.

·Because of the quality and expertise of its advanced services for business, among which those activities characteristic of the Economics of Information stand out.

·Because of the availability of urban space for the location of innovative enterprise.

Due to an environment that generates and diffuses innovation

Valencia and its region have a tradition in using creativity in the field of business and production, which also manifests itself in the fields of culture and leisure. The principal economic and industrial sectors of the region (textiles, shoes, ceramics, furniture, toys) have been developed without the necessary raw materials (leather, fabric, wood, etc.) near at hand, but with high degrees of innovation, ingenuity, creativity and design.

The concentration of each sector at a geographical level (in what are known as "clusters") has favoured and strengthened the ties between companies and research organizations. The production processes themselves generate and nurture innovation. The Technological Institiute Network channels this creative process. A third agent, the universities, completes the region’s innovative cycle: a cycle that is scientific, technological, productive and educative.

The Technological Institute Network

Valencia and its metropolitan district have surroundings that are greatly aimed at the generation and diffusion of innovation. Firstly, two thirds of the Network of Technological Institutes are located in Valencia and its metropolitan district.

The Network of Technological Institutes comprises the 16 Technological Institutes of the Autonomous Region of Valencia and its aim is to bring together and develop synergies in Research and Development and Innovation among the centres involved in support of the regional innovation system. The technological Institutes of the REDIT offer companies a wide range of advanced services with high value added, covering the technological requirements of the SMEs of Valencia, including: (Cooperative projects, Diffusion and transfer of technology, Viability studies, demonstration and experimentation, environment and occupational safety services, Quality, management and product design, specialised information, training, studies, e-commerce, production management systems, etc...), covering the technological requirements of the SMEs of Valencia

The indicators of the Technological Institute Network’s acivity suggest the existence of a dynamic web of commercial activity, one that is informed by the technical innovation and research in each sector. Further proof of the network’s dynamism is its contribution to the National Innovation System, representing as it does 64% of the associated companies, 30.5% of the clients, 20% of the personnel and 20% of the earnings.

Unas universidades dinámicas e innovadoras

Two of The Network of Universities of Valencia, the Universitat de València and the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, are located in the city of Valencia, one of the country’s leading university cities, with the greatest number of university students per inhabitant. Both play an increasingly important role of research and development and innovation and carry out crucial work in the transfer and diffusion of know-how and technology in close collaboration with the industrial fabric of Valencia, either directly or through the Network of Technological Institutes

A number of projects have been started that will reinforce and strengthen the relation between the university and the city, in particular companies in the urban environment. This ensures the continuity of positive synergies and the development, transference and diffusion of innovative technology.

The City of Innovation and the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia

The aim of this project is to create an urban space for the development of innovation. Given that the transference of knowledge to its socio-economic environment is one of the UPV’s basic activities, a strategic decision was taken in the middle of the 1990s to create the "Scientific Park" of the UPV (the "Ciudad Politécnica de la Innovacíon – CPI"). This "City of Innovation" is to be found next to the university campus, an area of nearly 140,000 square metres, 100,000 of which metres are already built on. When finished it will contain buildings for research, for the fostering of businesses with a technological base, and possible Research and Development departments, which work with the research groups and institutes of the UPV. Phase zero was implemented at the end of the 1990s with a surface of 20,000 square metres.

Later phases shall see the installation of institutes linked to agricultural engineering, with technological processes and chemical products and will be devoted to energy, the environment, sustainable development and the improving of human potential. The INNOVA foundation for the development of science and technology in the Valencia region, recently created by the Valencia Business Confederation and the UPV, will be an important supporting element in the offer of and demand for the results of the research carried out, results which will, without doubt, help increase the competitiveness of businesses in Valencia.

The University-Business Sector Foundation of the UVEG

The UVEG’s University-Business Sector Foundation works to make the University a means of approaching productive sector
training. The location of the Foundation, in the old part of the city, reflects a desire for inter-relation with society. This is in line with other projects undertaken by the University (the Calle de la Nave building, the Colegio Rector Peset, and the research centre in the Botanical Garden). Together, they provide a backbone for the old centre of Valencia through the encounter between the academic and professional worlds (both in the present and the future).

A range of high-quality, advanced services for business

The growth in the number of services offered

The increase of economic activity in Valencia in recent years has been sustained by the increase in the number of advanced services available for businesses. These services represent a growing percentage of the total of tertiary activities. Offering a large number of highly-qualified personnel, who are able to make intensive use of the new information and communication technologies, they indicate the advanced state of the city’s economic life.

The importance of intensive economic activities in information

Alongside the advanced services for businesses are those activities directly related to the New Economy: industrial activities, both service and professional, dealing with the new technologies of information and telecommunication and making intensive use of creativity, knowledge and information as inputs. These, and other activities, form centres of knowledge which transmit information through training, education
and culture.

In Valencia there exists a wide range of activity that provides information, and of activities related to the production of computers and office equipment. The telecommunications industry is one of the most dynamic and has the highest growth rate. In short, the activities of the New Economy in the city are expanding.

A wide choice of premises for the location of innovative enterprise

Valencia offers a wide choice of office space, and space for innovative enterprise relating to both the service and production industries.

This office space is estimated as measuring 200,000 square metres, with a predicted 50% increase over the next three years to 300,000 square metres. Furthermore, the cost of renting or buying this space is practically half that of other large cities such as Madrid and Barcelona19.

The increase of space for the location of offices and business has been made possible by the urban development currently taking place in several parts of the city. This development includes plans for an infrastructure to support economic activity in a way that will combine the residential with the commercial.

• The Avenida Francia development, and the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias, near the Courts of Justice.
• The Palacio de Congresos development.

There are other areas of the city where the location of business is in full expansion, such as the Avenida Aragón and the Paseo de la Alameda, near to the Jardín del Turia. Besides these there are the urban neighbourhoods where business and commercial activities have traditionally been found: the Ensanche, Extramuros, and of course, the Ciutat Vella (the old centre of the city), where an ambitious process of restoration and revitalization is being carried out.

Ciutat Vella: a nucleus of information, creativity and design.

The neighbourhoods that make up the Ciutat Vella were in the past centres of economic activity and production to which their streets, named after trades such as velvet-making, watchmaking, law, bag-making, meat-selling, etc. ,bear witness. In more recent times they have been home to company headquarters and offices. Now, some of these streets have gone back to being magnets for creative enterprise such as architecture, fashion, interior decoration, industrial design and advertising, as well as other activities inherent to a City of Information. The Ciutat Vella offers unique buildings and urban spaces with multiple possibilites for the housing of activities related to the New Economy and Information.

The results: A region with one of the highest levels of new product development.

The development of new products is an indicator of a region’s creativity and innovation. The Valencia region has one of the highest levels of inventive enterprise, with a high and increasing number of patent applications.

The universities also carry out dynamic research activity in collaboration with the business sector.

The growth rate of advanced services is increasing

The existing offer has attracted so many services that over the last three years its growth rate has not slowed down, in keeping with the rhythm of the economic cycle, but accelerated.

An expansion greater than that of Barcelona, the other large economic focal point in the Spanish Mediterranean Arc.