The head of the University underlines the driving capacity of Airbus, as well as its contribution to the generation of employment in the community, with 4,000 workers in its plants

The Regional Minister of University, Research and Innovation, José Carlos Gómez Villamandos, has highlighted that Andalusia is a benchmark for the aerospace sector at a European level, while he has underlined the contribution of Airbus to this consolidation of the region on the international map of this activity, but also of innovation, technology and defence. He underlined this during his visit to the company’s facilities in Tablada, in the capital of Seville, where he was able to learn about the projects related to innovation and technological development that it has underway in the field of defence.

During his tour of the Tablada plant, Gómez Villamandos stressed that “the university, innovation and business are inseparable factors in ensuring Andalusia’s leadership in the European aerospace scene”, ensuring that “the university is the foundation and innovation is the springboard”.

The head of the University also highlighted the positive evolution that this economic activity is experiencing in the community, with very notable levels of business growth that show the good progress of its business axes: commercial aviation, space, defence and drones. For the minister, this sector constitutes one of the most muscular segments of the regional economy and with the greatest capacity to promote the transformation towards a productive model based on knowledge. In addition, he stressed its high added value, its export projection and its quality employment, as well as its high innovative and technological component and its traction for the rest of the productive areas. In his opinion, aerospace activity provides services of various kinds to other areas such as transport, logistics, security, defence and the environment. The Minister wanted to highlight the “drive” of Airbus in achieving the challenges and objectives posed by this sector, due to its “driving capacity”.

For all these reasons, he recalled that his department has been working to reinforce the drive for innovation and technology in the aerospace field, through various public aid programmes and actions that could add up to a total of almost 90 million euros. Apart from this financial support, he outlined the various lines of work that are being carried out by the Regional Ministry in this activity, such as the ‘Space Innova Andalucía’ programme, which will have at least 20 million in incentives from FEDER Funds. This initiative seeks to identify innovative technological solutions in the space sector to apply them in areas of activity managed by the regional Administration related to the deployment of emergencies, the fight against fires, environmental management or statistical and cartographic analysis. The action will be carried out through the Public Procurement of Innovation (CPI) formula and, as explained by the minister, this initial amount could be increased by 14.6 million more, since a request for this amount has been made to the Line of Promotion of Innovation from Demand (FID Line) for the Public Procurement of Innovation, which is supported by FEDER Funds and is coordinated through the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities.

Likewise, Gómez Villamandos has referred to the Centre for Innovation in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Urban Air Mobility of Seville (CUAM, for its acronym in English), which will have a global budget of 20 million from the Andalusia 2021-2027 FEDER Programme, and which, promoted jointly with the University of Seville, will focus on generating knowledge that will allow Andalusia to maintain its scientific and technological leadership in unmanned aerial vehicle technologies for civil uses. He also referred to the 17 million euros with which his department has supported the recently inaugurated Centre for Testing, Training and Assembly of Unmanned Aircraft (CEUS), which is promoted by the regional Executive together with the National Institute of Aerospace Technology (INTA) in the province of Huelva.

Likewise, the Junta de Andalucía is finalizing with the City Council of Seville and with the Advanced Center for Aerospace Technologies (CATEC) the signing of an agreement for the implementation of the incubator of emerging technology-based companies in space matters of the European Special Agency (ESA) in the capital of Seville.

Qualification of talent

Likewise, Gómez Villamandos has highlighted the importance that training and professional qualification acquire in this sector to have specialized profiles. In this sense, he has emphasized the vocational training programme that includes the new Integrated Aerospace Vocational Training Centre in La Rinconada (Seville) and which “aspires to be a national reference in the maintenance and construction of aircraft”, as well as the future academic programme of Andalusian public universities, which includes training aimed at this type of profile, reinforcing the offer in engineering. In the case of the aerospace sector, three new master’s degrees are included, one at the University of Granada and two at the University of Seville.

Finally, Gómez Villamandos has highlighted the significant role that defence and security are playing, an area that, in his opinion, opens up numerous possibilities in aerospace, but also in other industrial sectors such as logistics, naval and technology.

Airbus’ driving capacity

Airbus’ work in Andalusia is focused on its defence business division, with a presence in Cádiz and Seville. In Seville, the Tablada facilities carry out the preliminary assembly processes for large components for the C295, such as the fuselage, which will later be assembled on the final assembly line. The San Pablo factory carries out the final assembly line for the A400M and maintenance, repair and overhaul work on the C295.

Given the importance and presence of Airbus in the community, the university professor has offered his support “in the tractor-training of the sector in Andalusia”, while stressing the role that the company plays in generating employment in the community, taking into account that 28% of the Airbus Spain workforce is located in Andalusia, with 4,000 workers in the plants in Cádiz and Seville.