BIVA agrees to promote a business acceleration space to consolidate Sant Cugat as a European innovation hub
The 2nd BIVA General Council has agreed to promote a business acceleration space to consolidate Sant Cugat as a European innovation hub.
The meeting, held at the HP Customer Welcome Center Barcelona, gathered more than 30 promoters of the Barcelona Innovation Valley Alliance (BIVA)
The Barcelona Innovation Valley Alliance (BIVA) held its 2nd General Council this Thursday, May 29, bringing together more than 30 promoting entities. This meeting marked a decisive step towards the operational phase of BIVA, with the agreement to promote a Business Acceleration Space in Sant Cugat, a technological hub that will serve as a new driver of talent, innovation, and competitiveness.
Cristina Estavillo, Head of HP Sant Cugat Print FW, opened the session by welcoming the attendees at the HP Customer Welcome Center Barcelona, located at the Sant Cugat site — one of HP’s most significant locations internationally — where the Council took place. Albert Salarich, Councillor for Business, Innovation and Internationalisation at Sant Cugat City Council, then highlighted: “BIVA is now entering the execution phase. The goal is to accelerate local innovation with a global perspective, positioning Sant Cugat as a key innovation node in Southern Europe.”
Business Acceleration Space: an engine of talent and innovative projects
The central moment of the day was the presentation of the future Sant Cugat Business Acceleration Space, jointly designed by Tech Barcelona, RocaSalvatella, and the City Council. Miquel Martí, CEO of Tech Barcelona, remarked that this space, inspired by Tech Barcelona’s previous experience and other international innovation hubs, “aims to connect entrepreneurship, large companies, research, and education to generate real impact on economic growth, talent attraction, global recognition, and the transformation of knowledge into innovative solutions. It’s a decisive step toward consolidating a connected ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship in Sant Cugat, leveraging the significant assets the territory already possesses, with a global outlook and a strong will to grow.”
To ensure tangible and applicable results for businesses, the hub will be structured into vertical labs specialized in different strategic value chains aligned with major European priorities. In Sant Cugat, key areas include health and biotechnology, technology and services, financial and insurance services, and green and sustainable construction, among others.
The hub’s objective is to double the number of startups in Sant Cugat by 2030, from the current 88 to nearly 180, and to expand the total infrastructure to more than 20,000 m².
This space, inspired by global initiatives such as CIC (USA), Station F (France), and Maria 01 (Finland), will be the central node of a distributed innovation system, leveraging the spaces and assets of different local agents to create a broad and inclusive ecosystem. The model will combine physical infrastructure with a digital platform to connect actors beyond geographical boundaries and foster continuous collaboration.
Overall, the space aspires to become a vibrant, multidimensional, and cross-sector ecosystem, capable of attracting high-impact talent and projects, fostering knowledge generation, international connections, and the transformation of scientific innovation into applied solutions and new business opportunities.
Strategic projects: from concept to execution
During the session, several key projects were presented, structured according to their stage of development. In the BIVA Launchpad — a space for developing initiatives — highlights included Sant Cugat’s candidacy for the European Commission’s “Rising Innovative City 2025” award (led by the City Council, La Salle-URL and Sant Cugat Empresarial), and the BIVA HealthCities – Interreg Europe project, led by the City Council in collaboration with eight other European partners, which aims to improve governance in the health and life sciences ecosystems and strengthen support for emerging businesses in the sector.
At BIVA Studio, dedicated to more advanced strategic proposals, initiatives such as Sant Cugat Talent were shared — a comprehensive programme to generate, retain and attract talent — as well as Citilab de l’Aigua, which proposes specific solutions for the city’s water management system.
In this context, Concepció Curet, manager of Sant Cugat Empresarial, presented the Business Recognitions, an initiative launched on the occasion of SCE’s 20th anniversary, in collaboration with the City Council and SCE. The biannual awards aim to recognise leading companies in innovation, sustainability, international impact, and talent. Curet emphasised that “these recognitions will help reinforce BIVA’s strategic priorities and the local business ecosystem.”
Josep Bassa, also representing Sant Cugat Empresarial, presented a project on the future of business parks, which includes the creation of a Mobility Observatory based on aggregated and anonymised data, providing real-time information to support decision-making among stakeholders involved in business park mobility. Bassa stressed that “we cannot afford to lose talent due to everyday issues like mobility. We must turn mobility from a problem into a differentiating factor.”
Finally, BIVA Garage — a space for pilot tests and embryonic ideas — discussed early-stage concepts that the innovation alliance may develop in the future.
An alliance for the future
The Barcelona Innovation Valley Alliance (BIVA) is a local action instrument that strengthens the city’s entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystem and its area of influence.
Under the slogan “Sant Cugat is BIVA”, the initiative has launched a website biva.cat and aims to promote and coordinate joint actions and strategies among its members to foster talent development, promote innovative entrepreneurship, facilitate knowledge transfer, strengthen the innovation ecosystem, and enhance the city’s international profile.
Members of the Barcelona Innovation Valley Alliance
Promoters:
- Sant Cugat City Council
- Sant Cugat Empresarial
Companies:
3. Bank of Sabadell
4. Berry Global
5. Boehringer Ingelheim
6. Eurofragance
7. Exotech by Dexter
8. Ferrero
9. Fluidra
10. Fracture
11. GFT
12. Grifols
13. Gutmar
14. University Hospital of Catalonia
15. HP
16. Movement
17. West
18. Oxygen Data Center
19. Palex
20. Roche
Academic and research centres:
21. ESADE
22. Vallès Higher Technical School of Architecture (UPC)
23. Gimbernat University Schools
24. Eureka
25. La Salle
26. UAB Research Park
27. ALBA Synchrotron
28. Autonomous University of Barcelona
29. UIC Barcelona
Institutions:
30. ACCIÓ
31. Biocat
32. Terrassa Chamber of Commerce
33. Mobile World Capital Barcelona
34. Tech Barcelona
More information and news on the project: www.biva.cat
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Who promotes the Innovation Alliance
The alliance is made up of local and regional public bodies, global innovation centers from different sectors, business associations, and universities and technology and science centers in the region.
