Catalonia Trade & Investment and the Danish cluster Odense Robotics sign an agreement to boost collaboration in robotics

Catalonia Trade & Investment -the Catalan Government’s agency for business competitiveness-, through its Office in Copenhagen, has signed an agreement with Odense Robotics, Denmark’s main robotics cluster. The aim is to encourage collaboration between the two organizations to create synergies and share knowledge between the Catalan and Danish ecosystems in the field of robotics.

Odense Robotics brings together more than 130 companies with a total of 13,900 employees, as well as 8 knowledge institutions in the field of robotics and automation. The cluster aims at accelerating the growth and innovation of the sector in Denmark, connecting companies, entrepreneurs and research and education centers and all the agents of the ecosystem.

Under this agreement, Catalonia Trade & Investment and Odense Robotics will promote the development of cooperative technology projects between companies in both territories and encourage the introduction of automation and innovative technologies in different industries. The agreement also includes the organization of seminars, workshops and missions. In fact, a delegation of companies that are part of Odense Robotics plans to visit Barcelona in 2021.

According to the director of Catalonia Trade & Investment’s Office in Copenhagen, Irmelin Ipsen, “this signature is an important marker of the collaboration between Catalonia and Denmark, as at Catalonia Trade & Investment’s office in Copenhagen our goal is to further the collaboration between the Nordics and Catalonia within trade, innovation and investment for the mutual benefit for our regions”. According to Ipsen, “robotics is an essential sector for the future and boosting innovation within this field can be a great benefit to our industries. We aim to actively support this bilateral exchange of technology and innovation and believe the collaboration between Catalonia and Odense Robotics will be strengthen further by this Letter of Intent” she said.

Mikkel Christoffersen, Cluster Director of Odense Robotics, states that "Odense Robotics has a main mission of driving the innovation in the whole Danish industry”. “It is very important for the companies in Denmark which are internationally focused to meet relevant customers in the industry. The ecosystem in Denmark is very much consistent of small and young very innovative companies and its important that they meet the right customers at the right stage in their development. That’s one of the reasons why we are so pleased to announce this agreement with Catalonia Trade & Investment”, he added.

Catalonia’s Office in the Nordic countries

Catalonia Trade & Investment established its Office in Copenhagen in 1991 with the aim of promoting trade relations between the two territories and encouraging the development of joint projects in the field of innovation. Specifically, the office specializes in supporting projects in the smart cities, life sciences, ICT and robotics sectors. The Copenhagen office, in addition to Denmark, also covers the markets of the rest of the Scandinavian countries and the Baltic republics.

In this sense, at the end of 2019, the Director General for Industry, Matilde Villarroya, participated in the opening ceremony of the new collaborative robotics hub that the Danish companies Universal Robots and MiR have set-up in Barcelona’s 22@ district. These 1,500m2 facilities aim to drive innovation in the field of robotics and mobile robots, as well as creating synergies between developers, distributors and manufacturers. According to Catalonia Trade & Investment data, there are currently 117 Danish companies established in Catalonia, while Catalan exports to Denmark reached almost 365 million euros in 2019.