The Department of University, Innovation and Digital Transformation presented the main pillars of the new PCTIN during a consultation session with stakeholders from the Navarre R&D&I System (SINAI), businesses, and other departments of the regional government. The session formed part of the Innovation Ecosystems conference organised by ADItech, the coordinator of SINAI and the governance platform where public authorities, companies, and innovation system stakeholders discuss regional R&D&I policies.
A plan built around three pillars and seventeen measures
The new PCTIN is structured around three fundamental pillars: talent, technology transfer, and funding. Under the talent pillar, the measures focus on promoting STEM and digital vocations through a gender-inclusive approach, attracting and retaining scientific excellence, and developing innovation, entrepreneurship, and industrial skills.
The technology transfer pillar includes measures aimed at integrating SMEs into R&D&I and digitalisation, fostering collaborative knowledge transfer, strengthening the science- and technology-based entrepreneurial ecosystem, and creating environments for the testing and validation of innovative solutions. The third pillar, funding, includes strengthening the scientific and technological capabilities of SINAI, improving tax incentives for R&D&I, and aligning regional support with national, European, and international funding sources.
Enabling measures: coordination and access as the starting point
Alongside its three main pillars, the plan includes a set of enabling measures that address something often taken for granted but rarely resolved: the architecture of access to the innovation system. Among the most significant initiatives are the coordinated scheduling of funding calls, the creation of an innovation map with clear access pathways, a fast-track innovation process to streamline procedures, and greater territorial outreach to SMEs through local innovation agents.
These measures are complemented by initiatives to promote scientific and technological culture and to embed a gender perspective across the entire R&D&I strategy—two cross-cutting dimensions that emerged from the participatory process as essential to the success of the plan.
A participatory process as the method
One of the most significant aspects of the PCTIN is not its content, but the way it has been developed. The public consultation launched in April involved the main stakeholders of Navarre’s innovation ecosystem before the roadmap took its final shape. Carmen Cenoz, Director of Operations and Communications at ADItech, highlighted the importance of this dialogue between SINAI, businesses, and the regional administration as a prerequisite for ensuring that the plan delivers over the next four years.
Regional Minister Juan Luis García framed the ambition in territorial terms: becoming one of Europe’s leading innovation regions is not simply a matter of rankings, but a prerequisite for greater competitiveness, stronger resilience, and the ability to attract and retain the talent needed to generate prosperity for the people of Navarre.
Compass’ Insight: The most valuable innovation plan is the one built before it is written
Spain has dozens of regional innovation strategies. Most share one characteristic: they are drafted before they are discussed. A technical team—sometimes supported by external consultants—prepares the document, opens a consultation period that few people engage with, and then publishes the final strategy as though participation had genuinely taken place. Navarre’s PCTIN follows a different sequence: first listen, then write. The participatory process was not a procedural step that followed the diagnosis; it was the condition that made the diagnosis possible. What may appear to be a procedural distinction is, in fact, a strategic one: a plan that ecosystem stakeholders have helped to shape does not need to be sold, because it already belongs to those who will implement it. Participatory governance is not an added feature of innovation strategies; it is the only way they are likely to succeed. The fact that Navarre applied this approach rigorously before defining its 17 measures offers a model that other regions would do well to study—not because of its specific content, but because of its method.
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