With the aim of promoting scientific and technological innovation in Santa Fe, the provincial government is investing more than $ 2.4 billion in the sector. It is from the call "TecPro, technologies for production", an initiative articulated by the Secretariat of Science, Technology and Innovation of the Ministry of Productive Development.
"We have made official the 50 winning proposals of the competition that receive funding from the Province to promote innovation projects in production processes, specialised services and substantial value added to solve common problems of the productive sector," said Minister Gustavo Puccini, and then indicated that "with an investment of $ 2,400 million pesos, we are betting heavily on scientific projects that modernise the production of our province".
Technology, innovation and production
In this regard, it should be noted that the Santa Fe Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation (Asactei), under the Ministry's Secretariat of Science, Technology and Innovation, carried out the initiative, which received 119 proposals from companies distributed in 13 departments of the province, with a large representation of the territorial production network.
The evaluation took place at the Casa de Santa Fe in Buenos Aires, with external evaluators from all over the country. The specialists, from industry, universities, and technical and networking organisations, recommended 50 projects that will receive funding from the Government of Santa Fe.
The winning projects address diverse topics such as the development of sustainable asphalt mixtures, the autonomous measurement of efficiency for heavy machinery with artificial intelligence, the development of a prototype of a 'washing tower' for the recycling and decontamination of plastics from agrochemical containers, the modernisation of a bagging machine through the adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies, among others.
In this regard, the Secretary of Science, Technology and Innovation, Érica Hynes, said that "the implementation of this call and the decision to invest in innovation is part of the productive transformation of Santa Fe. Incorporating knowledge to improve competitiveness can be a challenge and with TecPro, the province accompanies the steps needed to innovate".
In this sense, the official said that "open competitions with external evaluation are complex processes for the companies that apply, which must meet the requirements that are requested and develop proposals; and for the evaluation team, made up of professionals from outside our province and the executive board of the Agency, which must select among very good projects for recommendation. This effort resulted in a quality result in a period of less than three months from the closing date of the call for proposals.
It should be noted that Asactei's initiative culminates with a cycle of activities in the territory such as the Formulation Workshop, the Technological Linking Units (UVTs), a weekly virtual consultation room, working spaces with municipalities and communes and dissemination in fairs and exhibitions throughout the province.
Winning projects
The list of projects selected for funding under the TECPRO call for proposals can be consulted on the Provincial Government's website: (https://www.santafe.gob.ar/index.php/web/content/download/279446/1448367/file/TECPRO%202024%20-%20N%C3%B3mina%20de%20proyectos%20seleccionados.pdf).
