Vistas Generales Sodercan

The Sociedad para el Desarrollo Regional de Cantabria S.A., SODERCAN, part of the Ministry of Industry, Tourism, Innovation, Transport and Commerce, has provided €561,932 in assistance for 19 R&D+i projects presented by 17 companies in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector of Cantabria in 2021.

The projects will mobilise a total investment of over €2.14 million, according to the Minister of Industry and Innovation and President of SODERCAN, Javier López Marcano.

The beneficiaries were TTI Norte, Acorde Technologies, Awge Technologies, Viavox Interactive, Semicrol, Astander, Ambar Telecomunicaciones, TST (Tecnologías, Servicios Telemáticos y Sistemas); the Centro de Investigación y Tecnología Industrial de Cantabria, CIC Consulting, Lis Data Solutions, Centro Tecnológico CTC; IngeCID, Investigación y Desarrollo de Proyectos; Acicatech Servicios Tecnológicos, Inesco Ingenieros, Arenas y Asociados Ingeniería de Diseño, and IPS (Ingeniería, Productividad y Sistemas del Norte).

The aim of this assistance program is to promote business and industrial innovation by providing support for industrial R&D+i projects and experimental research oriented towards the development of new ICT products or functionalities, including product prototypes where appropriate.

The Minister noted that this line of assistance is in addition to other SODERCAN initiatives in support of innovation in strategic areas such as the automotive industry, the circular economy or in contracting ICT engineers, all with the goal of furthering the capacity for R&D+i in Cantabria.

López Marcano highlighted the strategic importance of the ICT sector in Cantabria, a growing sector largely characterised by small companies intensely engaged in developing new products and services to remain competitive.

The minister also noted that the ICT sector of Cantabria is making an essential contribution to the expansion of the digital economy, e-commerce and growing digitalisation, with the incorporation of digital technologies on the part of companies, citizens and public administrations.

Within this context, SODERCAN annually offers financial support for companies in the ICT sector, promoting R&D+i projects that facilitate this digital transformation.

Call for 2022

Applications for the call of 2022 will be accepted until May 31 through the SODERCAN Assistance Management System, with an initial budget of €450,000 that may be expanded if necessary.

In the 2021 round, SODERCAN received 31 applications and increased the initial budget of €450,000 to €562,000, using surplus funds from other programs.

These subsidies are aimed at projects with a minimum subsidisable budget of €30,000 and a maximum of €150,000 within the telecommunications sector, diversifying the industrial base of the region and developing new products with high added-value that can help boost productivity. Projects fall within the scope of the ICT value chain, including sensor systems and data capture technologies, ICT services, communications protocols, network architectures, management software, Big Data, data analysis, etc.

This call is aimed at providing assistance for projects within the following areas:

• Development of intelligent sensor systems and wireless sensor networks.
• Development of software tools and solutions for data management and security.
• Data mining, monitoring and connectivity software with applications and devices.
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• Service-oriented software applications (for citizens, companies, public administrations, etc).
• Software applications oriented towards Big Data and data analysis.