Service companies in innovative environments: The case of Spanish science parks

Abstract

important sector in the Spanish economy, representing 67’27% of GDP anf 71’88% of the total employment (INE, 2009). Innovation has become one of the most important ways of improving precessess and products. Nowadays it is also in the service sector. In fact, annual budget assigned to innovative activities is increasing each year. In this context, using the data available at the Asociación de Parques Científicos y Tecnológicos de España (APTE), we analyze the importance of the service sector in science park. Attending to the APTE’s classification, we identify five typologies of companies referred to the service sector, namely: technology transfer offices, business incubators, training centres, IT services and consultancy services. Data is analyzed from two perspectives: individually (each park), and regionally ( parks grouped according to the Spanish’s political and administrative regions), focusing especially to IT companies. Our results show that nearly 50% of the companies allocated in science parks come from de service sector, corroborating the importance of this sector in those innovative environments.