Our Group has reached an agreement with the University of Extremadura (UEx) to create a sponsored Chair that will promote industrial and business innovation. The signing of this agreement took place at the UEx Rectorate and was attended by the Regional Minister for Ecological Transition and Sustainability, Olga García, the Chairman of CL Grupo Industrial, Ricardo Leal, and the Rector, Antonio Hidalgo.
The Chair will be based at the School of Industrial Engineering (Badajoz campus) and will be supported by the Faculty of Economics and Business Sciences of the University of Extremadura. Ricardo Leal outlined some of the key aspects of the project: “In line with our business vision and our commitment to sustainability, the aim is to develop technology maturation projects that enable companies in Extremadura to improve their competitiveness by incorporating new sustainable energy vectors.”
These vectors will include waste recovery, synthetic and renewable gases, green hydrogen, storage of photovoltaic surplus energy, and digitalisation to improve process efficiency while reducing the carbon footprint. Among the potential projects will be the production of synthetic gas from waste and research into green hydrogen from photovoltaic surpluses.
In addition to promoting sustainability, the circular economy and the 2030 Agenda, all of which are essential factors in the day-to-day industrial and business activity of our Group, the Chair will also focus on the economic viability of the projects. To this end, it will delve deeper into market studies and business plans for each technological solution.
The specific name of the programme will be ‘CL ‘N’ Tech Chair’, which brings together the concepts of “clean technologies” and the main initials of CL Grupo Industrial. The final tagline is therefore: ‘Technological Transition for a Sustainable and Competitive Economy’, summing up a Chair that aims to become a benchmark at both regional and national level.
For his part, the Rector of the University of Extremadura, Antonio Hidalgo, spoke very positively about the collaboration with CL Grupo Industrial: “It is a good example of what it means to innovate and create wealth in Extremadura.” Hidalgo added that “the University can help with the new opportunities emerging in the industrial sector in general and in the energy sector in particular, since, for example, we have researchers who have been working for years on the production of green hydrogen through photovoltaic energy”.
In addition to the energy sector, the Chair will make use of the potential of the University of Extremadura in other fields, such as the promotion of the Circular Economy, which represents a major opportunity for economic development and for the creation of new employment opportunities.