Almost a hundred personalities from Valencian society, from politicians to professionals, academics, scientists and businessmen, ask in a manifesto for a “greater role” for the semiconductor cluster of the Valencian Community in the Perte Chip managed by the central government. A support of marked “ideological diversity” and that comes from “various traditional sectors”, as pointed out by the secretary of the Valencia Silicon Cluster, Carlos González Triviño, and that seeks to demonstrate the weight of the Valencian semiconductor industry in the distribution of European funds. .
The request comes in the form of a document – signed by the former presidents Joan Lerma and Alberto Fabra, the mayor of València, María José Catalá; the former councilor Vicent Soler, the senators Luis Santamaría and Cristina Moreno or the rectors of the UV, Mavi Mestre, and of the UPV, José E. Capilla, among many others – and with which they pursue that public institutions “at all levels “commit to developing this technological potential as one of the main arguments of the Valencian economic model, which they call an “exciting common future” for the technological sector of the Valencian Community.
The manifesto has a vindictive tone when it warns that the execution of the European funds that provide said Perte has budgetary forecasts estimated at more than 12,000 million euros and must be applied before the second half of 2026.
The Council of Ministers approved the program in May 2022 and, so far, the Valencian Community has allocated 13.8 million euros for three “Chip Chairs”, a call that was pending from Perte and that was published last summer. However, there are more funds to distribute and the objective of the cluster is that the financing for the long-awaited Semiconductor Campus in Valencia that is projected can enter the Perte structure.
That is why the numerous signatories of the manifesto demand that a bilateral table be established to decide what they describe as the “share of legitimate prominence” of the Valencian ecosystem in the distribution of the funds of said Perte. That is, the funds are proportional to the role that the Valencian Community has in this sector since, remember, 50% of all human resources in microelectronics and 60% of those in integrated photonics are located here.
The manifesto is key for the Valencia Silicon Cluster, of which Mayte Bacete is president, in turn director of MaxLinear Hispania, a company that is grouped together with Analog Devices, Bosch, ams Osram, VLC Photonics/Hitachi, Das Photonics, IPronics and Gobernanza Industrial, together with the Polytechnic University of Valencia and the University of Valencia.
According to Carlos González Triviño, a “key” request of the manifesto is the creation of a bilateral Government-Generalitat Valenciana table. “We consider that an institutional interface is needed to put numbers and draw the role that the Valencian Community will have within the Perte.” They ask that industry and universities participate in it to jointly define the concepts and deadlines of this “exciting common project.”
A “country” project, they call it from the sector, which in their opinion should recognize Valencia’s strength in attracting international talent and investment. “All the relevant indicators demonstrate that our territory has the best developed ecosystem in Spain in the microelectronics and integrated photonics sectors,” states the document, which adds that the Valencian ecosystem is prepared to take on challenges “of a significant nature.” much older.”
Next Friday the headquarters of the Business Confederation of the Valencian Community (CEV) – one of the signatories along with AVE or the LAB Foundation – will host a conference on the sector, the first Valencia Silicon Forum. The president of the Generalitat Valenciana, Carlos Mazón, will participate, and the three chairs for which funding has been obtained as well as the International Semiconductor Campus project will be presented. The approval of the Valencian Semiconductor Strategy by Les Corts Valencianes in the last legislature was intended to collaborate in attracting talent to establish industries in Valencian territory.
