Science for Industry 2026 in Madrid

Our colleague from excite|INNOVATE was at the Science for Industry (S4i) in Madrid to find out about the latest developments in technology transfer. The trade fair brought together around 1,800 registered visitors, including around 200 companies. Stakeholders from Spain, Portugal, the United Kingdom and Romania were mainly represented - with a clear regional focus on the Iberian Peninsula.

In terms of content, the presentations and discussion rounds, most of which were held in Spanish, focused primarily on the funding landscape and existing funding programs. In the personal discussions, our colleague exchanged ideas in particular with service providers for technology transfer and law firms, who presented their services relating to exploitation, copyright law and transfer processes.

One central theme ran through many of the discussions:
"Once again, it became clear that the biggest challenge for successful technology transfer is the financing of development work - from the time of invention to actual application maturity," said Annegret Wolf.

The trade fair thus demonstrated above all the Spanish perspective on technology transfer and underlined how crucial viable financing models are for the successful transfer of innovations into practice.