spain's aerospace industry

New Technologies in Spain

Aerospace The Spanish aerospace industry has expanded internationally by investing in cutting-edge technology and a highly skilled workforce.

Innovation in Motion

Spain is now the world’s eighth-largest economy and the fastest growing in the European Union. It represents more than 2.5% of the world’s total GDP and a third of all new jobs created in the Eurozone last year. Spain is fast becoming a leader in in-novation and generating advanced solutions in the industries of aerospace, renewable energies, water treatment, rail, biotechnol-ogy, industrial machinery and civil engineering. Spanish firms are innovators in the field of public-works finance and management, where six of the world’s top ten companies are from Spain. Where innovation thrives, so will the successful global enterprises of the 21st century.

To find out more about technology opportunities in Spain, visit:www.spainbusiness.com

To find out more about New Technologies in Spain, visit:www.technologyreview.com/spain/aero

As Spain has grown economically in recent decades, its aero-space industry has taken flight. Buoyed by an unusually strong investment in research, and by local representation from major international aerospace companies, smaller engineering, design, and technology companies have formed and grown to support the aviation and space sectors. Spanish firms have particularly advanced in the area of carbon fiber composites, a growing field in the push to decrease the weight and increase the efficiency of aircraft. At the same time, uni-versity research has increased in partnership with private companies to meet the needs of the aerospace industry in Spain and around the world.

HistorySpaniards began taking to the air in the early part of the 20th century. Aeronautical engineer and pilot Juan de la Cierva

invented the autogiro, a type of aircraft, in 1919. He contin-ued experimenting for four years and eventually flew the world’s first stable rotary-wing aircraft, the forerunner of today’s helicopter.

Shortly thereafter, in March 1923, José Ortiz de Echagüe, the third Spaniard to be issued a pilot’s license and the first Spaniard to fly a military plane, joined forces with colleagues to found CASA (Construcciones Aeronáuticas Sociedad Anónima), one of the country’s first aviation companies. They built a production plant at Getafe near Madrid that same year and began construction of military aircraft. By the 1930s the company had begun developing its own models.

After the Second World War and through the 1970s, CASA established itself as a leader in transport aircraft. By the 1980s it had produced a popular design, the C-212, that it exported to air forces around the world.

Spain’s Aerospace Industry The aerospace industry has grown dramatically in Spain in recent years as local companies have contributed to projects both in Spain and abroad. Spanish industry provides cutting-edge technology which enables its companies to expand internationally. This is the fifth in an eight-part series highlighting new technologies in Spain and is produced by Technology Review, Inc.’s custom-publishing division in partnership with the Trade Commission of Spain.

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Spanish companies are innovating in space research—for example, developing improvements in satellite control systems.

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In 1971, Spain, through CASA, became part of the Airbus consortium, responsible for the design and manufac-ture of specific structural components, including horizontal tail units, fuselage sections, access doors, and landing-gear doors. In 1999, CASA became one of the founding members of the European Aerospace Defense and Space Company (EADS), together with the German com-pany DaimlerChrysler Aerospace AG and the French company Aerospatiale Matra. EADS includes Airbus and Eurocopter, the world’s largest helicop-ter supplier, and is one of the largest suppliers for the European satellite nav-igation system, Galileo.

Recently, the entire landing gear for EADS-Airbus planes such as the 380 has been produced in Spain. In addition, s ince the 1970s CASA has been involved in space programs, producing parts and modules for launchers, satel-l i tes, and the International Space Station. EADS-CASA remains a major provider of airlift and transport aircraft, such as the CN-235 for the U.S. Coast Guard. The Airbus plant in Seville houses the final assembly line for a modern military airlifter, the A400, which replaces older planes like the C-130 Hercules and provides twice the load and volume.

Today, EADS-CASA, Airbus, and Eurocopter all have strong representation in the Spanish aerospace industry and in fact have driven the creation of literally hundreds of smaller engineering, design, and manufacturing companies around Spain. At the same time, other companies have grown to play a strong role in the aerospace industry both in Spain and overseas, meeting the industry’s demands and creating solutions to pressing aero-nautical problems.

Carbon FiberOne of the most significant goals in the international aeronautics industry today is increasing efficiency and thus reducing the use of fuel, which would save on high fuel costs and help reduce global warm-ing. One strategy is to reduce the weight of planes. And an increasingly popular method of weight reduction is the use of composites, especially carbon fiber rein-forced plastics, in place of the metals that have been standard throughout the history of aviation.

These composites consist of plastic that has been impregnated with filaments of carbon fiber to form a thin fabric. To create structures such as those used in airplane parts, these fabrics are layered into a mold, with the weave aligned in particular directions to ensure optimal

strength. The composite is then cured and checked, usually with ultrasound, to ensure that each piece has no interior imperfections. The resulting material is light, strong, durable, and resistant to swings in temperature.

Spain began developing its expertise in carbon fiber composites when Span-ish companies created parts for the European space launcher decades ago. Though the aeronautics industry has long relied on sturdy metals that have been tested and employed for decades, Spanish companies bet on investing in further research on carbon fiber, a bet that has paid off as these materials gain wider use in aviation. The Airbus 400 military plane will be the first Airbus plane to be made with carbon fiber wings. About a quarter of the structures in the new Airbus 380 will be made of carbon fiber, and the A350, still in the design stages, is expected to contain even more. Boeing is increasing the carbon fiber percentage of its 787 to 50 percent. Spanish companies are in a unique position to capitalize on this growth.

Much of the research on carbon fiber in Spain takes place at the sprawling Airbus and EADS-CASA facilities located in Madrid, Toledo, and Seville. These facilities are some of the largest in Europe. In Toledo, research at the Airbus Advanced Composites Center has focused on how to design and manufac-ture large curvature panels from carbon fiber. Because of this research, the material has been used in large sections of the fuselage of major commercial aircraft for the first time.

Another top player in the Spanish market is Aernnova, formerly Gamesa Aeronáutica. The company began operations in 1993, building parts for the aviation company Embraer and soon thereafter for the helicopter company Sikorsky. By developing, designing, and building major parts for planes out of car-bon fiber and titanium, Aernnova created new methods and techniques to ensure product strength and safety.

The company today is taking its exper-tise to American aviation giant Boeing, with hundreds of engineers in both Seattle

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The presence of major international companies such as EADS and Airbus has propelled the rapid growth of the aerospace industry in Spain.

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and Madrid working to make planes lighter (thus more environmentally friendly) and designing structures for the fuselage. As part of its continuing work, Aernnova is part of a new European consortium working on “clean skies”—the design and production of environmen-tally friendly aircraft.

“From a technological point of view, we are developing and continuously applying R&D to new product develop-ment,” says Ignacio López Gandásegui, president of Aernnova. “Logically these activities are primarily taking place in structures, which is our main activity. We are continually working with new mate-rials and new production systems for these materials.”

The focus on carbon fiber has also led a number of supplier companies to develop expertise in designing and manufacturing components out of this material. One major production and research center in the south belongs to SACESA, which has been in existence since 1995. The company has produced structural parts for Airbus, for EADS-CASA’s military planes, and most recently for Boeing’s B-777; the com-

pany’s research department has devel-oped proprietary tools to analyze and test the structural integrity of these parts. Through its success in designing and manufacturing major composite pieces, produced both in fiber molds and in sandwich panels in a honeycomb structure, SACESA predicts 33 percent growth this year.

In the past five years in Andalusia alone, the turnover of all these support companies has nearly tripled.

One of the issues with carbon fiber production is keeping costs down. “Carbon fiber itself was very difficult to obtain—there were few suppliers,” says Jesús Marcos, director of Tecnalia Aero-space. “It cost a great deal, and there were very unique applications. Today, there are more suppliers, and the challenge remains the cost of production.”

SENER, an engineering technology and consulting company, is developing automated systems to lay down textiles, reducing the manpower and therefore the cost. Today, most of the work is still done by hand. “Typically, the manufacturing system has been very intensive and man-ual,” says Rafael Quintana, director of

aerospace for SENER. “It’s like a big fashion shop; there are literally hundreds of people placing those composite textiles into the molds and so on.”

EADS-CASA focuses on a similar issue in carbon fiber production. Through research on the best methods for designing and producing curved and complex carbon fiber airplane products, scientists settled on the technique of simple stitching. Employing people to do the stitching would be prohibitively expensive, however, so engineers cre-ated industrial robots to do the handi-work—at up to 100 stitches per minute. After sheets are joined together, they’re draped in alternate directions over a mold and then pressed at very high heats to harden.

SENER specializes in designing com-posite material structures for aircraft. Recently, the company worked with SACESA to create the belly fairing for the Airbus 380—the lower section of the air-craft, where the air conditioning and the serving equipment are stored. “It’s a very large structure to be made in a composite material, and it demanded special tech-niques for the design,” says Quintana.

Spanish companies are experts in the production of carbon fiber reinforced plastics, which replace metal parts in airplanes to reduce weight and increase efficiency.

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The Airbus 400M horizontal tail plane is constructed mainly of carbon fiber composite material. (Shown at the EADS-CASA production facilities in Tablada, Seville.)

“You need to lay different textiles in spe-cific positions in order for the fibers to provide the strength and resistance for the finest finished piece.”

The company designs parts requested by large manufacturers such as Airbus. “They make the overall systems design, and specify the different components they require in composites,” says Quintana. “We figure out a way to make those parts.”

“Spain is one of the leaders in Europe in terms of carbon fiber due to our experience in the sector,” says Francisco Mencía, administrator of Aeropolis, an aerospace technology park in Andalusia.

Nanotechnology, a hot field for a variety of boundary-pushing innovations in science, has a place in the manufacture of carbon fiber aircraft parts as well. Nanoparticles added to synthetic material can immensely increase the finished prod-uct’s strength and resiliency. Nanoparticles may also serve as a fire retardant, increas-ing the material’s ability to withstand heat and burning without generating toxic gases. These technologies are in the early stages, however, and still cost too much to gain widespread use.

Tecnalia Aerospace is working with carbon nanotubes, mixed with alloys of other metals, to dissipate heat as effi-ciently as possible. Another future appli-cation of nanotechnology, perhaps more suited to the world of science fiction in the public’s eye, is the creation of invis-ible aircraft. “It’s complicated,” says Marcos of Tecnalia Aerospace, “but basically these particles would absorb some specific frequencies—radar, or visual frequencies. So when the fre-quency is absorbed, the aircraft would become basically invisible.” He explains the particles could be nano-sized or slightly larger, but this technology is all still under investigation.

Tecnalia Aerospace is also working on a combination of advanced materials, advanced heat dissipation, and flexible electronics to create systems such as the electronics box for aircraft. In their design, the electronics could become part of the structure of the plane, sig-nificantly reducing the system’s weight and volume.

SENER is researching the use of car-bon nanotubes in a flexible composite that could enable an aircraft’s wings to literally change shape during flight. “It’s

a totally new technology,” says Quintana. “Right now, any change in wings, such as landing flaps that are extended in order to increase the wing surface, is done by moving rigid surfaces. The idea will be for the shape of the wing to change with-out moving parts.”

Despite its maturity as a composite, carbon fiber remains a relatively young addition to aviation. “The industry’s experience with composites has not been that long—only about 15 years, which for the aeronautic industry is a short period of time,” says Quintana. The products have certainly been tested for safety, but Quintana says the industry still is eyeing the materials’ performance over the next decade.

Testing To help the aerospace industry speed up both innovation and the necessary test-ing, major companies in the Basque region of northern Spain, with local gov-ernment assistance, developed the Aero-nautics Technologies Center (known by its Spanish initials, CTA) in 1998. The center focuses both on developing new technologies and on testing products and designs.

One of the products CTA has devel-oped is a method of using infrared sensors to discover cracks and other defects in both metal and composite parts. Aernnova, one of the companies behind the founding of CTA, is already successfully using this new technology.

Another advance in testing is one of the most significant services CTA pro-vides. There are already four facilities that deal with fire, structures, fluid dynamics, and acoustics. A facility now under construction will employ highly accelerated life testing, a cutting-edge technology that can save companies about 20 percent of the time used in typical product testing—time savings that can, over the development of a product, lead to significant cost savings. These new tests involve exceeding a system’s vibration, temperature, and load limits at the same time. The effects mimic the stresses of long-term product life span and can highlight weaknesses, allowing manufacturers to correct those


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Spanish companies assemble parts for a variety of airplanes: here, workers assemble wings for an Embraer plane.


weaknesses before the products are on the market. CTA is the only lab in Europe performing these tests on elec-tromechanical components, and one of only a handful of labs in the world with these facilities.

CTA is one example of the focus on research and development in the Basque area, in northern Spain. In large part this movement toward R&D came about as the region shifted away from a primarily man-ufacturing base.

“The industrial crisis of the ’70s and ’80s exploded in the north of Spain,” says Juan P. Vela, general manager of CTA. “It affected the steel and shipbuild-ing industries, as they faced rising costs and increasing competition from the Far East.” With the assistance of the local government, the companies of the Basque region defined the aeronautics industry as one of the area’s new indus-trial goals after analyzing the viability of a number of alternatives. In only 15 years, the region’s investment, employ-ment, and production in the aerospace industry skyrocketed.

“In 1990, we had virtually zero sales in the aerospace industry,” says José

Juez, director of HEGAN, the Basque aerospace industry association. “Today we have 6,000 individuals employed in that sector. We have almost 20 percent investment in R&D over sales, which is particularly high. All this growth came about because the companies in the region, such as Aernnova, ITP, SENER, and more than 40 smaller companies, know the sector and understand the importance of investment in research to generate our own technology and the importance of collaborating with other companies and institutions.”

In the southern region of Andalusia, where Airbus and EADS-CASA have major production centers, local govern-ment and companies have created the Center for Aerospace and Advanced Technology (CATEC in Spanish), which is scheduled to open this year. The center will focus on three major areas of research: structures and mate-rials; propulsion, with research both on engines and on fuel; and equipment, avionics, and other onboard systems. The center will also work with EADS-CASA on research into unmanned aerial vehicles.

EnginesUntil the late 1980s, no major Spanish company focused on the design and production of aeronautic engines and turbines. It was to address this deficit that SENER, in partnership with Rolls Royce, founded ITP. Within only about 15 years, the company became a top world producer of low-pressure turbines in aeronautic engines—the turbines that move the fans within the engines. The company has grown into one of the largest aerospace companies in Spain, focusing on innovations in engine design, manu-facture, and repair.

“It’s difficult in this market to stand out based on just one factor,” says Iñaki Ulizar, ITP’s director of engineering and technology. “What makes a company attractive is a combination of great technology and well-trained employees. Once we receive specifications from a customer, we can complete the entire module from scratch.”

The low-pressure turbine accounts for a great deal of weight in the engine. At ITP, current research focuses on how to reduce noise, weight, and fuel con-sumption. The general approach is to examine the mechanics of the product and the air flow and attempt to increase efficiency by using new materials or changing the aerodynamic shape of parts. “We can make optimizations in the design that we couldn’t make even five years ago,” says Ulizar, “because computer capabilities today allow us to perform simulations overnight that give detailed information about the aerody-namics of the component. In the past, we could only do this kind of simulation to understand the physical design in physical research projects.”

ITP also does research to improve maintenance, repair, and overhaul activ-ities at its facilities near Madrid, where the company repairs aviation engines. New techniques involve advances in welding, cleaning, and coating applica-tions using thermal sprays. Researchers there are working in partnership with European counterparts to investigate reducing the use of metals such as cad-mium, chromium, and nickel in repair work. They are also developing new

This virtual-reality system provides ITP with the tools for maintenance assessment of the company’s engines.

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coatings and improving laser welding techniques. At the milling center, researchers focus on how to reduce the thickness of the casings for large compo-nents while protecting their strength. They are also examining ways to enhance the performance of milling tools by using nanotechnology in their coatings.

ITP is one of the top companies in the sector in terms of R&D investment. “Years ago there was a value in Spain by being low-cost compared to other Euro-pean countries, but today that is not the case,” says Ulizar. “So now in Spain there is an increased understanding that the only way to stay competitive is by invest-ing in research.”

HelicoptersEurocopter, part of the EADS family, is setting up a manufacturing center in Spain that will provide helicopter mod-els such as Tigers and EC135s for the Spanish army. “Between the army and the civil protection unit, we see a big potential market in Spain,” says Jesus Ruiz, spokesperson for Eurocopter-España. Ruiz says that research at the moment remains in the field of industrial transfer, building up a manufacturing base. But research facilities will soon investigate the possibility of using a

greater percentage of carbon fiber com-posites in helicopters.

Carbon fiber parts for these aircraft have also figured prominently in Aernnova’s work; the company has designed and provided structural parts in both meta l and composi tes to American -based helicopter leader Sikorsky. Aernnova is also part of a European initiative examining ways to reduce helicopter weight, fuel use, noise, and emissions.

The growing focus on helicopters has prompted some companies and research institutions to pursue initia-tives in this field as well. SENER is beginning to investigate methods of reducing helicopter noise. “Helicopter design and research is becoming more of a target for us as the Spanish industry is developing a great deal in this area, particularly with the new Eurocopter production center,” says aerospace director Quintana.

At the Polytechnic University of Cata-lonia in Barcelona (the Catalan acronym is UPC), a group of researchers is working to increase the autonomy of unmanned helicopters, a type of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). “There are UAVs all over the world, but helicopters are a very dif-ficult aerodynamic system, much more

difficult to drive and control than other aircraft,” says Ricardo Sánchez-Peña, who is in charge of the project.

Sánchez-Peña says that his group is trying to add autonomous behavior through an artificial vision system and increased autonomy in the control systems. Applications could include infrared sensors that would detect forest fires or electrical fires and then call for human assistance.

The hardware for this type of activity already exists—sensors, navigation sys-tems—so the challenge today lies in the software: “integrating navigation with other sensors, and providing greater con-trol and autonomy,” says Sánchez-Peña. “If you want to gain in precision, there are mathematical problems to solve. The challenge today is in the area of the control system and artificial vision.”

ControlAll over the world, the Spanish informa-tion systems company Indra ensures a plane’s safe takeoff, travel, and landing. Its air traffic management systems have been sold to more than 20 countries; its parts and products are found in many more, thanks to sales to international companies such as Raytheon. In fact, about 20 percent of flights in the world cross a center with an Indra system installed. The systems process and inte-grate information such as a plane’s flight plan, its real-time location and move-ment, the weather, flight changes, and the general flow of plane traffic in a given area.

“One of the reasons our system is one of the most advanced in the world is the algorithms we use to determine the plane’s trajectory, the accuracy of the trajectory according to the route, mete-orological conditions, and performance of the aircraft,” says Javier Ruano, director of air traffic management for Indra. Originally, the job of traffic con-trollers was largely based on radar, but today, as flight zones are becoming increasingly crowded, this planning has gained in importance.

Research at Indra, and in fact the cut-ting edge of flight control around the world, involves using satellite informa-


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Spanish companies, increasingly focused on producing helicopters, are conducting research initiatives to improve efficiency and reduce noise.

Spanish Aerospace Innovations Span the Globe

Countries Where Spanish Aerospace Companies Operate


tion and data links between planes and ground control as a way to attain a higher degree of accuracy than radar and eliminate the blank spots that exist in today’s radar systems—for example, over the ocean. With a navigation satel-lite system, an onboard computer knows its location with great accuracy and can communicate it to the air traffic control center. (Radar, however, will always be required as an independent source of information, because someone with

intent to do harm could take manual control of an onboard computer.) Addi-tionally, this link allows an exchange of trajectory information between ground and air computers, thus improving plan-ning and prediction.

One other benefit of the new data-link systems will be a reduction in actual dialogue between pilots and controllers. “Though in most of the world the stan-dard flight language is English, some-times the communication between

non-native pilots and controllers can be difficult and result in mistakes,” says Ruano. “These will be avoided through automated dialogue, which will also offer the clear benefit of workload reduction.”

Another element of control involves replacing typical hydraulic systems, such as wing flaps, that power different ele-ments of flight. New systems will be elec-tric ones, with power and signal wires delivering the controls to the wings. Hydraulic systems are heavy, but they have been reliably employed in aircraft since the beginning of flight. “The aircraft industry is very conservative,” says Quintana of SENER, which is designing these new electromechanical systems. “It’s a very safe system, very conserva-tive. But if you are trying to evolve into lighter aircraft, the electromechanical system is significantly lighter than a hydraulic one.”

In addition, Indra is one of the top pro-ducers of flight simulators in the world, supplying simulation equipment all over Europe and to the United States as well, where they are used to train American navy pilots. The company recently sup-plied new training simulators for U.S. Navy Seahawk helicopters. This technol-ogy will be part of a new EADS-CASA flight training center, which will be an addition to the company’s manufacturing and research centers near Seville.

Spanish companies are key contributors to scientific missions of the European Space Agency, providing an increasing number of parts and modules for space programs.

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Resources


SpaceSpanish companies have been involved with the European space program for decades, and Spain is a member of the European Space Agency, contributing subsystems to the launcher of the Inter-national Space Station. Today, Spanish companies and research institutions have a significant and growing presence in all major ESA scientific missions. The Spanish government has recently rededicated itself to the space sector’s growth with the Strategic Plan 2007–2011, which includes a $267 million investment focusing on research and development.

Some of the same companies that have been creating new technologies for the aeronautics sector have turned their atten-tion to space as well. For example, Indra, the information systems company, has developed control centers for satellites. Indra is also responsible for developing stations that process search-and-rescue systems for Galileo, the European navi-gation satellite system. GMV, a company with more than 20 years’ experience in engineering and software for space and aviation, was recently selected to provide the mission planning and sched-uling system for NASA’s Lunar Recon-naissance Orbiter, the NASA Goddard mission to the moon scheduled for late 2008.

SENER has been working in space for 35 years, developing deployment, positioning, and pointing systems. The company is partnering with the United States for the Mars Sample Laboratory, designing the pointing mechanism for the Rover antenna.

An important project for SENER in the space sector is a partnership with a number of other European companies on an in-orbit servicing system. After satel-lites have been in orbit for the intended lifetime, about 10 to 15 years, they need to be retired from service. “The idea behind this [system],” says Quintana of SENER, “is to extend the life of the satel-lite by sending a vehicle that will dock with the existing satellite and provide extra years of operation by supplying control and fuel.” SENER is in charge of the guidance, navigation, and control of

the vehicle; a launch is planned within the next few years.

One small company in northern Spain, Advanced Dynamic Systems (ADS), has focused its research on what are known as satellite orbit control actuators. These systems can turn the satellite around to orient the satellite for a given task, such as aiming a cam-era in a specific direction. ADS is work-ing on control moment gyros, which provide agility and fast movement for observation satellites. There are only a handful of companies in the world developing these systems. “Our project is based on existing technology,” says Jorge Serra, director of business devel-opment for ADS, “but with an innova-tive approach that provides better performance than what is in use today, and with about half of the weight and volume of current systems.”

The idea came about when an engi-neer, one of the company’s founders, visited a museum exhibit that featured gyros. “He started considering the prin-ciples of kinetic momentum and torque, and he started thinking of how to get a better performance from a gyro, then he invited two professors to join him,” says Serra. This led to the current company’s focus. Serra continues, “Our approach involves combining the basic configura-tion of elements necessary with changes that are relatively minor, but in the end these changes provide us with two or three times the existing capability.”

The product has been under develop-ment for two years and may be tested with the Microsat satellite program of INTA, the Spanish space agency, on a satellite that will go into orbit in another two or three years.

Spain will also be launching the first satel l i te made almost entirely by Spanish companies. In the Spanish newspaper El País, Joan Trullén, sec-retary general of industry and president of the publicly funded Center for Indus-trial Technological Development, is quoted as saying, “This isn’t only a symbol, or a signal to the international community of Spain’s capabili ty. Rather, it’s a magnificent example of the best Spanish technology.”

ICEX (Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade)www.us.spainbusiness.com

Aernnovawww.aernnova.com

ATECMA (Spanish Association of Aerospace Industries)www.atecma.org

EADS-CASAwww.casa.eads.net

HEGAN (Basque Aerospace Cluster)www.hegan.com

Indrawww.indra.es

INTA (National Institute for Aerospace Technology)www.inta.es

ITPwww.itp.es

Proespacio (Spanish Association of Space Companies)www.proespacio.org

SENERwww.sener.es

To find out more about new technologies in Spain, visit: www.technologyreview.com/ spain/aero

For more information visit:www.us.spainbusiness.com

Contact:Mr. Enrique AlejoTrade Commission of Spain in Chicago500 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 1500Chicago, IL 60611, USAT: 312 644 1154 • F: 312 527 [email protected]

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New Technologies in Spain Series

Spain is a technologically and industrially advanced country committed to innovation, research and development, both through its government and through its private sector. The country is determined to deepen and inten-sify its productive specialization in industries that depend on technology and innovation. The Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Commerce has launched an ambitious plan combining its available human and financial resources and setting out specific lines of action with the goal of strengthening the interna-tional outlook of the most technologically advanced companies in Spain.

As part of this initiative, Technology Review’s custom-publishing division has produced the New Technologies in Spain Series, which will appear as a special advertising supplement in MIT’s Technology Review magazine. This powerful eight-part series showcases the technological development and excellence of Spanish companies in several important industries, such as wind energy, water desalination, infrastructures, high-speed rail, aerospace, industrial machinery, biotechnology and renewable energy.

Spanish firms have embraced new technologies to persevere in their continu-ous search for advanced solutions. To find out more, visit:www.technologyreview.com/spain

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