The Institute for Business Competitiveness of the Junta de Castilla y León (ICE) and the AIR Institute have held an information day on the European R&D programs Cluster 4 of Horizon Europe, “Digital, Industry and Space Cluster”.

The event took place last Wednesday at the facilities of the Junta in Salamanca. About fifty businessmen from Salamanca attended the event to learn about the opportunities offered by this call and how to apply for the € 940M with which digitalization and innovation projects will be funded throughout this and next year.

The event was opened by the delegate of the Junta de Castilla y León in Salamanca, Eloy Ruiz, who was accompanied by the territorial director of ICE, José Francisco Diego, and the president of AIR Institute, Juan Manuel Corchado. Afterwards, the national contact points of this call and members of the CDTI, Fernando Martín, Andrea Pérez-Calvo and Carlos Toledo, explained the different funding models, what projects and technologies are eligible and how to apply for them.

Finally, Javier Llorente, from the company Reciclados Sostenibles, described his experience in a Cluster 4 project; Isabel Peláez, from ICE’s European Projects Unit, spoke about the support provided by this entity, and Corchado concluded the day with a presentation of the Centr@tec program.

The attendees were also able to hold bilateral meetings with the national contact points from Cluster 4 to present their specific case and review possible proposals.

Organization and upcoming events

This conference was organized within the framework of the Centr@tec program, an initiative promoted by the ICE and the regional technology centers to promote innovation, digitalization and internationalization of the region’s business network. Over the course of its third year, a series of training sessions and technological demonstrators are being organized in all the provinces of Castilla y León with the aim of increasing the presence of local corporations in national and international innovation programs.

For its part, the AIR Institute, as a technology center focused on the development of solutions based on Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and the Internet of Things, will organize over the coming months from Centr@tec a series of conferences in the provinces of Salamanca, Avila and Zamora in which the application and usefulness of these technologies for different productive sectors will be addressed.

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.