Yesterday we had the luxury of being able to participate in one of the sessions of the eleventh edition of Transfiere, European Forum for Science, Technology and Innovation, which, since February 16, is holding one of the most complete events in its history.

Juan Manuel Corchado, as director of the BISITE Research Group and president of the AIR Institute, has been part of the round table entitled “New Paradigm: COLLABORATION; Company4.0-University4.0-Association4.0-Administration 4. 0”, joined by Jorge Alfonso Kurano, researcher and project manager at the UPM; Iván Aitor Lucas del Amo, General Director of Innovation, Research and Digital Transformation of the Government of the Principality of Asturias, and Javier López Muñoz, Vice-Rector for Business, Territory and Digital Transformation of UMA. Francisco Baeza, SISTEM’s Business Development Director, moderated the session.

The symposium analyzed the different existing University-Business knowledge transfer models that are currently being applied across Spanish educational institutions. Juan Manuel Corchado highlighted how BISITE has evolved from being a group to positioning itself as a consolidated Research Center, which has been able to double the number of its active projects in just three years.

As he pointed out in his speech, the backing of the institutions has had a twofold effect: on the one hand, it has given more freedom and stability to the researchers, allowing them to undertake contracts and develop long-term strategies; on the other hand, as a result of this situation, a stable structure has been created that generates greater confidence on the part of the companies when forming consortiums with us.

Finally, all the possible lines of financing were analyzed, ranging from the NextGenerationEU funds to the grants announced by the CDTI. All of them are an excellent opportunity to develop disruptive projects in the fields in which we usually work, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain or IoT.

More than 370 experts gathered at Transfiere, a meeting that features over 600 companies and brings together professionals from 45 countries for a program with more than 130 activities and presentations focused on defending the potential of innovation as a transformative element of society.

This year’s Transfiere, which is a national R&D&I benchmark, has been organized by the City Council of Malaga, the Andalusian Knowledge Agency under the Ministry of Economic Transformation, Industry, Knowledge and Universities of the Regional Government of Andalusia; and the Ministry of Science and Innovation, together with the CDTI and the executive direction of FYCMA (Trade Fairs and Congress Center of Malaga).

Posted by Juan M. Corchado

Juan Manuel Corchado (15 May 1971, Salamanca, Spain) is Professor at the University of Salamanca. He has been Vice-Rector for Research from 2013 to 2017 and Director of the Science Park of the University of Salamanca. Elected as Dean of the Faculty of Science twice, he holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Salamanca and a PhD in Artificial Intelligence from the University of the West of Scotland. He leads the renowned BISITE (Bioinformatics, Intelligent Systems and Educational Technology) Research Group, created in 2000. Director of the IoT Digital Innovation Hub and President of the AIR Institute, J. M. Corchado is also Visiting Professor at the Osaka Institute of Technology since January 2015, Visiting Professor at the Universiti Malaysia Kelantan and Member of the Advisory Group on Online Terrorist Propaganda of the European Counter Terrorism Centre (EUROPOL). J. M. Corchado has been president of the IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics Society, and academic coordinator of the University Institute for Research in Art and Animation Technology at the University of Salamanca, as well as researcher at the Universities of Paisley (UK), Vigo (Spain) and the Plymouth Marine Laboratory (UK). He currently combines all his activity with the direction of Master programmes in Security, Digital Animation, Mobile Telephony, Information Systems Management, Internet of Things, Social Media, 3D Design and Printing, Blockchain, Z System, Industry 4.0, Agile Project Management, and Smart Cities & Intelligent Buildings, at the University of Salamanca and his work as editor-in-chief of the journals ADCAIJ (Advances in Distributed Computing and Artificial Intelligence Journal), OJCST (Oriental Journal of Computer Science and Technology) or Electronics MDPI (Computer Science & Engineering section). J. M. Corchado mainly works on projects related to Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Blockchain, IoT, Fog Computing, Edge Computing, Smart Cities, Smart Grids and Sentiment Analysis. He has recently been included in the board of trustees of the AstraZeneca Foundation, along with other health professionals and researchers recognised for bringing scientific knowledge closer to society.