Initiative

Who we are >

The BIC is an initiative of Barcelona City Council that was born with the aim of promoting innovation and consolidating the city as the innovation capital of southern Europe.

It is a public-private platform that brings together the city's main innovative agents: universities and business schools, research and knowledge transfer centers, business associations, clusters, financing agents and public administrations.

The BIC makes it possible to create networks that facilitate the transfer of knowledge, synergies and the development of innovative projects in the city.

The main objective of the BIC is to strengthen innovation by facilitating the transfer of knowledge from the research world to companies, and it will be focused on the strategic sectors of health, mobility and energy, and as a transversal vector, the technology and digitization.

What do we do? >

Revitalize an area of 25,100 hectares (1/4 of the area of Barcelona) where research centers, prominent companies of the city, 5 universities, 28 research centers and several municipal management centers linked to innovation are concentrated.
In this first year of BIC activity, key projects such as:

• the Barcelona Innova Lab Mobility: an urban laboratory that promotes innovative sustainable mobility projects and brings the testing of solutions developed as pilots to real spaces in the city
• the Deep Tech Node and the Deep Tech fund: network of emerging companies in deep tech, disruptive technological innovation, and an investment fund of 10 million euros to boost their development
• the 100 NetZero Cities Mission program: promoted by the European Commission, which has chosen Barcelona as one of the 100 smart European cities to invest in in order to accelerate the energy transition with the aim of becoming climate neutral in 2030
• the Enel Innovation Energy Hub: the tenth Enel Innovation Hub on a global scale is born in Barcelona in order to find solutions in the entire energy value chain, from the reduction of greenhouse gases to the impact of electrical infrastructures in the environment or energy storage systems.

How do we do it? >

Promoting innovative projects with the potential to develop and test a pilot in Barcelona, in the areas of mobility, health, energy, technology and digitalisation and in collaboration with the business, social and entrepreneurial fabric of the city.

Urban Labs, for example, are initiatives that allocate a geographical area within the city that facilitates the use of public spaces to test innovative pilot projects in real environments before being commercialized. They make it possible to enhance the interaction between different agents of innovation, speed up the go to market of innovative urban solutions and at the same time prioritize projects that can benefit citizens and the local ecosystem.

What do we offer? >

• Testing spaces in real environments.
• Access to public spaces and assets, including intangibles (processes, services and data).
• Knowledge and connection. Support for the development of the project. Support in the implementation of the pilot and impetus to its scalability or evolution, as well as the facilitation of relationships and interactions with the innovative ecosystem of the city, the municipal corporation and its autonomous bodies.
• Diffusion and visibility of the pilot on Barcelona City Council's communication channels.
• Funding for selected high-impact projects.