The Department of University supports this infrastructure, which will maintain the scientific and technological leadership of Andalusia, with a global budget of 20 million
The Regional Department of University, Research and Innovation will allocate in 2025 an allocation of nine million euros to the Centre for Innovation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Urban Air Mobility of Seville (CUAM, for its acronym in English), an infrastructure promoted by the Andalusian Government together with the University of Seville. This amount, from the Andalusia FEDER Programme 2021-2027, is added to the subsidy of six million that the regional Executive already transferred at the end of 2023 to the academic institution for its implementation, so the support for this centre will add up to a contribution of 15 million euros. Its overall budget amounts to 20 million, so the remaining amount of five million to complete this contribution is expected to be injected by the regional Administration in 2026.
This facility will focus on generating knowledge that will allow Andalusia to maintain its scientific and technological leadership in unmanned aerial vehicle technologies for civil uses and, in particular, for their application to urban air mobility, making possible the intelligent and safe autonomy of vehicles and systems. In addition, it aims to promote the transfer of knowledge that will be generated through this initiative to companies, with special emphasis on SMEs, through a specific plan for the dissemination and transfer of results to promote research and innovation in the business fabric. In short, this new innovation center will strengthen and accompany the Andalusian aeronautical industry, enabling it to diversify towards new products, all of them with a high added value far superior to the traditional manufacture of aerostructures.
The infrastructure will be technically led by Aníbal Ollero, a professor of robotics from Seville and one of the greatest European experts in drones. It will be located in the Aerospace Technology Park of Andalusia (Aerópolis) and in the Tablada barracks. It will be developed in phases and will have different laboratories, including a bank of electric motors and modelling, a laboratory for sensorised structures for urban air mobility (UAM), one for coatings and nanostructures for UAM and another for clean propulsion systems. The centre will be completed with a headquarters for flight operations and training. In the first half of this year, the purchase and sale operation between Aerópolis and the University of a warehouse in this facility took place for 814,677 euros.
Andalusia, second Region in the drone sector
The high-tech aeronautical industry made up of the so-called unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) or drones is one of the segments with the greatest future projection, due to the multiple applications that these aerial robots have in fields as diverse as agriculture, surveillance, infrastructure inspection, transport or fire control, among many others. Its growth is also exponential, driven by the constant technological advances applied to improve its performance and extend its use to a large part of the productive and service sectors.
Spain is among the ten world powers in this branch of the aerospace sector and Andalusia is one of those responsible for this push, since, after Madrid, the region is consolidated as the second relevant community both in operators and pilots, as stated in the Strategic Plan for the Development of the Civil Drone Sector in Spain 2018-2021. According to the document, there are more than 3,000 operators registered in the drone market across the country, of which 550 have an Andalusian seal. The plan also foresees that the fleet of drones for professional use will exceed 51,400 aircraft in 2035 and reach 53,500 in 2050. The economic impact of this growth is valued at 1.22 billion euros in 2035 and 1.52 billion in 2050.
For its part, the European Commission estimates that within 20 years the drone market will employ more than 100,000 people in the EU territory, with an economic magnitude of around 10 billion euros.
In this scenario, the Andalusian region is well positioned, since it has the knowledge, the companies and the professionals that place it in a prominent position, but, above all, it has the institutional commitment to continue advancing in its development. The sector, which is strategic for the community, also has the Andalusian Aerospace Strategy.
In addition, to strengthen the aerospace sector, the Regional Ministry of University, Research and Innovation is taking the first steps towards the development of the ‘SpaceInnova Andalucía’ programme, an initiative Public Procurement of Innovation (CPI) endowed with at least 20 million euros within the framework of the Andalusia 2021-2027 FEDER Program, which aims to identify innovative solutions in the space sector for their application in other areas of activity such as emergency deployment, firefighting or environmental management. This initial amount could be increased by 14.6 million more, since a request for that amount has been made to the Line of Promotion of Innovation from Demand (FID Line) for Public Procurement of Innovation, which is supported by FEDER Funds and is coordinated through the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities.
Likewise, at least 15 million will also be allocated from the Andalusia 2021-2027 FEDER Program for the development of aircraft that reduce emissions and noise in the aerospace field through the participation of the Board in the European program ‘Clean Aviation’.
Overall, and taking into account other programmes with an impact on the aerospace field, the Department of Universities will make more than 87 million euros available for this activity to strengthen innovation and the transfer of knowledge.
A benchmark in aerospace research
Andalusia is also a benchmark in this sector in the field of research, thanks, among other aspects, to the leadership position held by the University of Seville, both for the degree and master’s degrees taught at its Higher Technical School of Engineering and for the constant activity of its GRVC Robotics laboratory. Professor Aníbal Ollero, director of this laboratory and principal investigator of the new Centre for Innovation in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Urban Air Mobility, is the author with the most publications worldwide within the field of unmanned aircraft, according to Elsevier’s Scopus database.
Once the CUAM is completed, this infrastructure will join other unique and strategic facilities equipped with the most innovative technology, including the Advanced Centre for Aerospace Technologies (CATEC), based in the municipality of La Rinconada (Seville), the Centre for Experimental Flights with Unmanned Aircraft-ATLAS, located in Villacarrillo (Jaén), or the CEUS project, the Centre for Research and Testing of Unmanned Aerial Systems, in the municipality of Moguer (Huelva), jointly promoted by the Junta de Andalucía and the central government. In addition to these facilities, there is the Spanish Space Agency, based in Seville.
More than 2.7 billion in turnover in Andalusia
The region already has an advantage over other territories in this activity due to the weight it has achieved in the aeronautical industry, because it houses unique and highly relevant infrastructures and because it has outstanding research groups and technological centres in this field capable of transferring knowledge to the business sector. Andalusia has become the third European aerospace hub, after Toulouse (France) and Hamburg (Germany), with Seville and Cadiz as the main provincial exponents.
Responsible for 12.84% of Andalusia’s industrial GDP, the aerospace segment generated a total of 2,743 million euros in 2023 – 16.4% more -, generated 14,440 direct jobs, most of them highly qualified, and has a business network made up of 147 companies.
