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This Tuesday, 17 October, Mr Agustín Conde Bajén, the Secretary of State for Defence, closed out the workshop to present the Horizons Network, organised by Isdefe under the theme “Collaboration in systems engineering innovation for defence and academia”. Taking part in the workshop as speakers were leading officials from the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness, Ministry of Energy, Tourism and the Digital Agenda and presidents from prestigious Spanish universities.
The workshop satisfied its goal of staging a debate on innovation in the Administration and in academia. In his presentation, the Secretary of State for Defence, and President of Isdefe, noted the overlap between innovation, defence and its collaborative development, stating that innovation is inseparable from defence and that a close relationship between those who need innovation and those who can fill that need is essential. This is why the Secretary has identified Isdefe’s Horizons Network on technology foresight as an innovative tool and ally of academia that can be used as a focus for generating and analysing innovative ideas, positioning plans and dissemination activities.
In the first of the three roundtables on innovation in the Administration, innovative projects were recalled, like Innovative Public Purchase, the development of 5G technology and developments based on the Technology and Innovation Strategy for Defence. At this roundtable, the Managing Director of Armaments and Matériel for the Ministry of Defence, Lieutenant General Juan Manuel García Montaño, noted the importance of understanding defence research in order to establish innovative developments that adhere to their dual (military and civil) nature, thus imbuing them with added value.
Ahead of the second roundtable, Jesús Alonso, Director of Business Development at Isdefe, explained the process for creating the Horizons Network, noting its capacity to combine Isdefe’s internal talent with the capacities of academia by combining collaborative intelligence mechanisms that Isdefe, the in-house technical resource of the Administration, uses to enhance the values of innovation and anticipation and to have available a network of national and international academic experts that provide the system with the best analysis in each area of interest.
The second roundtable dealt with the various innovation networks and how best to structure them to satisfy their objectives. These innovation networks, like the Ministry of Defence’s Technology Observation and Foresight System, Isdefe’s own Horizons Network and the CDTI’s External Network, act in concert with national and international networks and their findings allow them to set up innovative processes, like the one developed by INTA involving RPAS certification and safety.
The third roundtable, on Academia and Innovation, featured the presidents of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena and Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, all of whom agreed on the importance of universities as nurseries for talent and innovative capacity. They also underscored the importance of academic-corporate collaboration to transfer technology and innovation and ensure the continuity of research.
This third roundtable was moderated by Isdefe’s CEO, Francisco Quereda, who, during the opening of the workshop, noted Isdefe’s vocation for innovation, both due to its origins at the heart of Defence, a historically innovative setting and precursor of technological development, and to its role since, as in systems engineering, Isdefe undertakes its activity from a systematic and integrated stance that combines the various disciplines and the duality of technology.