SENER awarded at the 2018 Vodafone Deia Innovation Sariak Awards
SENER has been honored by the Deia newspaper at the 2018 Vodafone Deia Innovation Sariak Awards. With this recognition, the newspaper notes “SENER’s constant tradition to innovate during all these years,” in statements by the outlet.
The prizes were presented on Wednesday, October 3rd at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, at a gala presided by the Minister for Economic Growth and Competitiveness of the Basque Government, Arantza Tapia. Accepting the award for SENER was the CEO of the group, Jorge Unda. In a statement, Unda highlighted how investing in innovation is investing in talent and technological development, essential to achieving a society that is more qualified and better prepared to face the challenges of the 21st century, and to guarantee the sustainability of our welfare state. He also underscored public-private sector collaboration as one of the keys to success in the Basque Country: “Each side has convinced the other that prosperity involves industrialization and investment in sectors with highly skilled jobs,” declared Jorge Unda. “Basque culture is one of enterprise, promoted and supported by the institutions, which have turned the scientific-technological offerings of the Basque Country into one of its hallmarks.”
SENER, culture of innovation
SENER has shown its commitment to innovation since its inception in 1956. SENER was endowed with the spirit of its founders, Enrique and José Manuel de Sendagorta, to tackle unique projects that would not have been undertaken earlier. SENER has continued in this culture of innovation, where technological differentiation is the key to its success in its various areas of activity. In fact, innovation is one of SENER’s three corporate values, together with quality and independence. This innovative effort has been recognized through numerous prizes, both national and international.
SENER’s commitment to innovation translates into an R&D investment that is around 3% of the group’s annual income, equivalent to a 25.4-million euro investment earmarked for innovation in 2017. SENER has internal tools to promote innovation, from an Innovation Committee coordinated by senior management, whose function is to promote and channel all the initiatives related to innovation within SENER, to its Innovation Prizes, internal awards with a significant monetary reward, that every year recognize those teams responsible for the most cutting-edge projects. There is also a predominantly horizontal structure and a cross-cutting activity focused on multiple engineering disciplines, from aerospace to infrastructure and transportation, renewable energies, power, oil and gas, and naval, that favor the emergence and exchange of innovative ideas. Besides, the SENER group is deeply involved in a digitalization 4.0 process in order to improve its efficiency.
On this regard, digitalization processes for companies and institutions was one of the main subjects during the Vodafone Deia Innovation Sariak 2018 award ceremony.