- Leader of the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country in terms of R+D jobs in technology companies, a segment accounting for 3% of all jobs in the city, compared to 0.7% in Vitoria and 0.3% in Bilbao.
- These are the findings of the latest report on businesses in the city supplying Knowledge-Intensive Services (“SEIC”), produced by O rkestra for Fom ento de San Sebastián.
The report presented in San Sebastián to a select representation of the city’s R+D ecosystem (universities, technology centres, businesses and sectoral representatives), and produced in association with Orkestra – Basque Competitiveness Institute – and Fomento de San Sebastián, concludes that knowledge-intensive services are one of the city’s main economic drivers, with a sustained trajectory and promising growth prospects, enhancing the vision of San Sebastián as a City of Science and Innovation.
These types of businesses may be broken down into 3 profiles: technological, creative and professional. According to this recent report, San Sebastián is an exponent of “remarkable specialisation” in the area of technology, specifically in the case of companies involved in Research and Development, which already account for 3% of total jobs in the city, and have notched up growth of 51.8% since 2014.
Ane Oyarbide, Local Economy and Employment Councillor, claims: “the data show that hard work over the last two decades to consolidate an innovative ecosystem facilitating a change of the economic model is now bearing its fruit. We must continue to work to develop a city of science and innovation, as a task which is already giving it an extraordinary attribute to set it apart from the rest, and bring it onto the world stage.”
The report concludes that these types of businesses have high added value because they generate higher productivity, quality jobs and innovative dynamics, and they have also demonstrated greater resilience to the economic crises which began to emerge in 2014.
Fomento de San Sebastián’s Managing Director Iñigo Olaizola said: “the focus on science and knowledge over the last two decades has proved decisive in bringing about an entrepreneurial transformation in our city. Investment in technology infrastructures and talent and the development of an entire R+D+i ecosystem has made knowledge-intensive services, especially technological knowledge-intensive services, the main drivers of job creation (1 out of every 3 jobs) and generation of GDP (almost 50% at local level) in San Sebastián. Fomento de San Sebastián’s steady focus in recent years with programmes and projects to drive talent and innovation has made a valuable contribution to this state of play, but we then felt it was important to conduct a thorough analysis of this sector in a bid to drive it forward even more and make it the city’s strategic criterion and brand. Working alongside Orkestra enables us to establish analyses and knowledge, confirming the importance of the sector, in addition to competitiveness factors and levers, which we must continue to elaborate, and come up with solutions in a strategy seeking to include the various operators working in the ecosystem”.
Orkestra researcher Miren Estensoro, in fact, noted during the report presentation that “participation by agents will be a key factor to work on bolstering the environment and overcome the challenges of competitiveness in the field. This requires a systemic approach which must go hand in hand with collaboration with other regional organisations in the territory, and the metropolitan areas and Basque cities which share the emphasis on this sphere of activity.”
Finally, the councillor also announced that, as part of this strategy, the current PIA audiovisual innovation building in Zuatzu will no longer be the Audiovisual Innovation Unit, and will be used as a space for the city’s leading knowledge-intensive service companies. “The city has spent two decades moving towards a production model based on knowledge, science and innovation. Many milestones have been passed during this phase, and this is one more milestone. An example of how we channel resources and strategies to transform our city into a place where people can lead better lives thanks to talent and specialisation.”
The report represents one more step in Fomento de San Sebastián’s strategy to secure in-depth knowledge of the needs and challenges of this segment of our city’s production fabric, a key factor for San Sebastián both now and in the future, and to create new added-value services and programmes that will help Fomento continue to move the sector forward.