The Government of the Azores wants science and applied investigation “to present results regarding the business innovation and to promote the industrial growth”.

The idea was defended today, in the Azorean Parliament, by the regional secretary for Science, Technology and Infrastructures, during the discussions on the Program of the X Government.

For José Contente, this innovation must be understood like “introduction of new processes, goods or services, aiming at the maximization of commercial results”, falling to the Government “a pre-competitive public intervention where the new nomenclature makes sense as risk incentives, clusters and business cooperation”.

The Government reckons with a “pro-active posture” of the University of the Azores “to reinforce accredited Investigation and Development (I&D) units”, it told the regional secretary, explaining that it will also be supported the creation of independent laboratories with basis on the investigation centred in the Azores.

The creation of independent laboratories will be supported with basis on the investigation centred in the Azores, with answers directed to the problems of our enterprises. Thus, we will open the competitions to any institution of known scientific investigation, in a significant percentage face to the, annually, approved value for the investment in Science and Technology.

Of the projects to advance with the support of the Government, José Contente enhanced the Center of Excellence of the Sea in Horta, the Azores Biotechnology Institute in Terceira, the Technological Park in S. Miguel, the Geodesy and Radioastronomy Stations in Flores and S. Miguel and the station for monitoring nuclear tests and explosions and ARM project in Graciosa.

Besides that, it added the governor, “we will reinforce the interest of other national and foreign entities in the technological parks created and we are going to reinforce the synergies stemmed from the installation of the ESA in Santa Maria”.

In the telecommunications sector, the regional secretary said that the Executive, besides wanting to see the standards of quality of the postal service and of the covering of the land public movable network improved, is going “to promote the appearance of new platforms of communications”.

In this last case, the priorities of the X Government will be called New Generation Networks, Digital Land Television and other infrastructures that generalize the access to the technologies of information and communication, like the optical fibre cable for the islands of Flores and Corvo, José Contente ended