AMETIC, the employers association for ICT firms, has appointed the General Manager of GMV Soluciones Globales Internet, Luis Fernando Álvarez-Gascón, as president of the R&D area, taking over from Francisco Marín, who in turn has been recently appointed General Manager of Spain’s Industrial Technology Development Center (Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnológico Industrial: CDTI).

AMETIC has also announced that Álvarez-Gascón will be supported at the head of this area by INDRA’s innovation manager, José Luis Angoso, acting as vice president.

The R&D area, made up by 152 associated firms, is one of AMETIC’s biggest. The association has flagged innovation as a "constant" feature for member firms and it has also pointed out that the ICT sector accounts for 30% of the private R&D effort in Spain.

The new president and vice-president of the R&D area have identified one of their “top-priority” aims as raising public and political awareness of the need of leading the digital revolution from its most innovative aspects across the field in all economic sectors, driving industrial development and job generation.

Along these lines AMETIC has explained that one of the five “flag-ship” initiatives of the 'Europe 2020' strategy is "Innovation Union", the aim of which is to improve and facilitate research and innovation financing. The specific objective in hard figures is for public and private R&D investment to add up to 3% of EU’s GDP by 2020.