BARCELONA’S EMERGING AGENDA

The world is living a strange moment. Catalonia, and specifically Barcelona, is struggling to find out the best way to overcome the pandemic crisis. Maybe it is a good moment to reflect and try to discern what we do right and what we have to improve on matters as:

• New economic models
• Spreading entrepreneurial spirit to other activities
• Industry innovation
• More participative governance models in organizations
• Application of R&D activity
• And a final reflection. Can design make the difference to our ecosystem?

1. Learning from our recent past

Riots in the city

In 2011 Hessel’s book “Indigneus-vos!” shook young minds around the world. It also happened in Catalonia. After the Prime debt crisis of 2008, and without almost any obstacle, cutting measures had been adopted everywhere. It was specially dramatic in education and health systems. So riots and claims arose in Barcelona. Citizens of every condition were upset because of inequality and how cutting measures were increasing it. A country always shown as an example of public spirit and politeness exploded. The President was evacuated from the Generalitat by helicopter rounded by outraged Catalan people. 

The differences and disagreements between Spain’s and Catalan’s governments after incomprehensible cuts made by Madrid to the decisions taken at regions’ parliament, led to more confrontations. Several circumstances and corruption at the dawn of the conservative party leveraged the, till that moment, moderated nationalist party to embrace independence as its main strategy. 

Since then, an ideologically divided society lived in dramatic moments when the coalition government organized a referendum, which was forbidden by Spain’s government. Sad images of police closing poll centers were projected to the world. Judicialization of those events brought complex situations still pending to be solved nowadays.

Catalan upset has been driven by the differences with Spain’s politics, but also by local policies or inactivity which is increasing inequality and discouraging a desperate young generation. It is the local representation of what is happening around the globe and especially in Europe. France has its “yellow vests” riots, a phenomenon that is not anymore something about the old confrontation between left and right movements. 

And then came the global pandemic, COVID19. A whole world health crisis that induced a global downturn. And with it, inequality is rising again, driving young generations to lose future options and non-income people to desperation. And riots started again.

Violence drives to nothing. Catalan people have to develop healthy productive open discussions to find urgent solutions for inequality and build community prosperity. There's a need for a new agenda in Barcelona.

A need for economic literacy and real commitment to fight corruption

One of the most important lessons learnt from the past crisis in 2008 is that people can’t delegate all important decisions in the hands of politics and economists. Indeed, we need advising and guiding from experts. But the future of a country has to take into account other important aspects such as: society, sustainability, people’s dignity, essential activities that won’t be profitable from a simple economist view. So that means we, as citizens, need to know and decide on all that.

Continuous appearing corruption cases linked to politics and relevant society position individuals are a reflection of our culture and permissiveness with this horrible practice. This has to stop. Maybe this is likely in humankind DNA, but it can’t be so assumed and generalized. All of us have a mission on this, acting honestly. That’s why a more serious commitment and learning on economics is needed for everyone. 

A signal that some people are starting in the right direction is that the Economy of Common Good or the Circular Economy are permeating in the Catalan people's mind, with active collectives, companies and institutions in the cities. A sign that other ways of working the economy are possible. So, what are we waiting for to extend it?

2. Barcelona’s entrepreneur and innovative ecosystem. A good starting point

The economic ecosystem of Barcelona has demonstrated its strength over and over, and we can proudly say it is one of the things we are doing well. The city is a lot more than a touristic place with a unique attractiveness. In the famous article at Financial Times “I want my Europe back: Simon Kuper on summer without travel", the writer misses the possibility to visit European cities and remarks:

“Europe’s most livable city is Barcelona. It exemplifies the European dream: that perfect mix of food, architecture, weather, wealth, friendliness and a manageable pace. Zoom will allow more people to live on the Mediterranean while working in an economy like London’s.”

Indeed, Barcelona has become a pole for companies around the globe looking for the best talent and space for its innovation in Europe. The town is among the preferred places to live for world young talent since several years ago.

Special relevance has the structured collaborative nodes of the living network of the innovative and entrepreneurial ecosystem. Public and private initiatives as 22@ district, Barcelona Tech City, Accio and others leveraged Barcelona to the fourth hub in this category. Events and world-class shows, as the Mobile World Congress, animated some multinational corporations to establish their innovation hubs in the Mediterranean town.

The entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystem integrates in a very aligned way key nodes from:

• Research and transfer centers. From universities to technological centers and much more.
• Entrepreneurial structures. Starting at public support policies, funding instruments and organizations (business angel networks, seed capital, venture capital and others).
• Open innovation spaces as Barcelona Tech City, a world reference center, where startups of every kind interact and share a common interest in technological capabilities.
• Corporate innovation hubs and collaboration centers (SEAT, Visa, CaixaBank, LinkedIn…)
• Funding

3. But there is still a lot to do

Education and entrepreneurship

There is a powerful cluster of universities and business schools where talent from around the world prepares itself and learns. Outstanding, qualified and curious young individuals aiming to face and solve new challenges for the post pandemic society choose this frame to launch new startups. New business ideas, which in some cases disrupt mature markets.

The city is an attracting pole for entrepreneurial spirit thanks to the concentration of digital and technological initiatives, experts and innovation hubs. The cross-fertilization you experience when entering one of those hubs, as the Pier 1 at the Port of Barcelona, is incredible. There is high worth tacit knowledge transmission and socialization.

Can we extend this model to other industries and economic activities? Can’t we ask this outstanding talent to help us improve our city? Are the prestigious business, technological and design schools (IESE, ESADE, IED , UPC…) catching the train of new educational models based on the internet?

Industry Innovation

Catalonia has an important industrial legacy. Lot of brick and mortar companies face an increasing risk of obsolescence on its production processes. There are some challenges for them such as automation, the adoption of artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality… what is called Industry 4.0. How can they become more competitive?

That obsolescence could mean the end of a lot of existing works. Will they be substituted and even overcome by new ones? Which are the skills indeed for them? There is space also for opportunities as it seems the global supply chain is in risk. So some production plants can return to the region after China's experience.

An obsolete governance model for modern organizations

As a past entrepreneur, shareholder and managing director of several organizations, I truly think the governance model in Spain is not ideal for companies. I would suggest more participating models for the board of directors, leaving space to employees and sharing the power with them. I tried to include this representation to my collaborators, but it had to be through giving stock options or, directly shares, which was not even interesting for them. Can we start thinking on copying existing co-governance models like Nordic countries of Europe as i.e. Sweden?

Transferring R&D outputs to the real world

There is an important research activity led by the public and private initiative. In Catalonia, we have initiatives researching on topics which hopefully will be great opportunities in the future. From nanotechnologies, bio engineering, bio medics, quantum computing, artificial intelligence, to new materials or healthcare new solutions. Its pharmaceutical research cluster is very competitive internationally, with some flagship players in the industry.

The Universities network is active and prominent in research. Several institutions make knowledge and technology transfer in a very efficient way. Finally, there are some public administration facilitators, which help to articulate the transfer and application to the market.

Is it well aligned to the market's demand? Is it arriving on the market and used by companies? At the same time, who is capturing the returned value? Are we ensuring the investments in R&D are returned to its creators?

A pearl to be discovered. Can design make the difference?

There are some paradigm references about how to create a real differentiation based on design. Apple is one of them. Why isn’t this powerful capacity, that is worldwide recognized, well integrated in our ecosystem? There is a clear demand for applied ecodesign from business models to product design. There is a scarcity of UX, UI experts, that are not only informatics experts, just designers. And pandemic has created a clear demand for new and redesigned services for all the companies, which are digitizing urgently to adapt to new situations. 

Those are only a few examples on how Design is, by far, the only aspect able to provide competitiveness to our industry, as we can’t try to compete with China’s production capabilities.

All points here integrate an emerging agenda for Barcelona. Are we going to start walking the talk?