The Spain–India Dual Year comes at a moment that goes beyond the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of our diplomatic relations. In a geopolitical environment marked by the fragmentation of supply chains, technological rivalry among major powers, and an unprecedented acceleration of digital innovation, technological cooperation between countries with complementary interests has become a strategic necessity. Spain and India share this need and have a sufficiently solid track record to address it with real prospects for success.
For CDTI, the relationship between Spain and India is neither new nor recent. As early as 2007, CDTI launched the India & Spain Innovating Program (ISIP), a bilateral co-financing instrument with the Government of India aimed at supporting R&D projects between Spanish companies and Indian research entities. Nearly two decades later, the results speak for themselves: 52 co-funded projects, €40.3 million committed, and a body of institutional learning on what works—and what does not—when two very different innovation ecosystems decide to collaborate. ISIP is not just a funding program; it is proof that Spain–India technological cooperation can generate real value when it is well structured and supported by both governments.
For many years, the prevailing perception in Spain positioned India mainly as a supplier of raw materials or as a destination for offshoring production. Over time, however, this view has been overtaken by reality. India has risen from 66th to 38th place in the Global Innovation Index between 2019 and 2025, leading the group of lower-middle-income economies and the entire Central and Southern Asia region. It has the world’s third-largest technology startup ecosystem by number of unicorns, behind only the United States and China. Its public innovation policies (Start-up India, Digital India, Innovate India) are not merely institutional positioning exercises; they are fostering a business fabric with its own technological capabilities and a growing willingness to collaborate internationally on equal terms. The increasing demand for the ISIP program among Spanish companies reflects this shift in perspective: Spanish firms are no longer looking to India as a low-cost supplier, but as a partner with whom to co-develop technological solutions for global markets.
In academia, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) stand out as a cornerstone of India’s R&D ecosystem—not only for their excellence in STEM education and the scale of their scientific output, but also for their ability to drive technological entrepreneurship and for the high quality of their advanced research centers. Recognizing this potential, CDTI continuously works to expand its institutional relations with the IITs and involve them in the industrial cooperation projects it funds.
This dynamism in India’s innovation ecosystem is also reflected geographically, with the consolidation of science and technology clusters around cities such as Mumbai, Bangalore, and Delhi, closely followed by Chennai and Hyderabad. These hubs connect academic knowledge with the productive system and are generating innovation poles with increasing international projection.
These factors are complemented by certain features that make India a particularly valuable partner for Spanish companies: its technological capabilities in software, digital services, ICT, and biotechnology; a business sector that has embraced innovation as a condition for growth and internationalization; and a vast market scale whose potential should be a priority in any technological innovation business plan. These strengths do not compete with Spain’s industrial capabilities, making bilateral collaboration a highly productive combination of capacities.
However, scientific and technological cooperation between Spain and India cannot overlook the cultural and structural differences between the two countries. Recognizing and managing them is essential to achieving the highest level of integration between their innovation systems. India’s regulatory framework is highly complex and can sometimes create uncertainty in R&D processes, which by nature require maximum agility. Meanwhile, although it has improved in recent years, intellectual property protection remains a consideration for Spanish companies sharing sensitive technological developments. In terms of technology transfer, the gap between academia and industry—despite significant progress by the IITs—still slows the commercialization of research results. Additionally, administrative bureaucracy can sometimes delay collaborative processes for innovative and potentially disruptive projects, which inherently require the shortest possible timelines to seize opportunities.
Nevertheless, none of these barriers is insurmountable. CDTI’s ISIP program has demonstrated that they can be managed through well-designed cooperation instruments requiring a selective approach, rigorous identification of complementarities, and an institutional framework that minimizes perceived friction for companies taking their first steps in bilateral cooperation. In this regard, ISIP’s seventeen-year track record represents a reservoir of mutual trust between administrations, a network of institutional contacts within the Indian ecosystem, and accumulated knowledge on how to navigate the particularities of each innovation system.
The year 2026 introduces a series of developments in Spain–India technological cooperation whose significance goes far beyond the bilateral dimension. The European Union and India have recently formalized their Free Trade Agreement, a historic milestone that includes specific provisions on cooperation in digital and technological fields. From CDTI, we strongly welcome the start of discussions on India’s association with the Horizon Europe program, the world’s largest research and innovation framework program. Once successfully concluded, this will enable joint calls and project architectures that will multiply collaboration opportunities for companies and institutions in both countries.
In addition, the EU–India Trade and Technology Council is generating bilateral R&D calls in strategic areas of shared interest, such as electric vehicle battery recycling, marine plastic waste management, and waste-to-green-hydrogen conversion, with a joint estimated budget of €60 million from Horizon Europe and equivalent Indian contributions. These areas align with the technologies prioritized in CDTI’s own 2024–2027 Strategic Plan—circular economy, energy transition, advanced materials, and digital health—and funded through its international cooperation calls. This thematic alignment is not coincidental; it reflects the extent to which Spain and India share a technological agenda with more common ground than geographical distance might suggest.
In the field of artificial intelligence, the Dual Year takes on particular significance. The AI Impact Summit held in New Delhi in February 2026 and the Delhi Declaration signed by 88 countries (including Spain and India) establish a framework of ethical and safety principles for AI development that will directly shape bilateral technological cooperation in the coming years. At CDTI, we view AI as a cross-cutting technology applicable to any sector, and we therefore support collaborative projects between Spanish and Indian companies that use AI to solve concrete challenges in industry, healthcare, energy, or the environment. The Delhi Declaration adds an ethical dimension to this cooperation that we consider inseparable from the responsible development of technology and which CDTI has incorporated as an explicit principle in its renewed institutional mission in 2024.
Cooperation with India is also part of what CDTI defines as an open but secure international cooperation policy, combining a willingness to work with strategic countries with specific instruments to protect research and innovation in sensitive areas, without foregoing the benefits of integration into international knowledge networks. This approach is consistent with the European Union’s commitment to technological sovereignty in its external science policy and is one of the guiding principles of CDTI’s international cooperation strategy.
CDTI’s commitment to cooperation with India in 2026 is reflected in concrete actions that go beyond the rhetoric of the Dual Year. First, the presence of CDTI’s delegation in New Delhi—part of its SOST (Spain’s Offices for Science and Technology) international network since 2007—strengthens its institutional footprint in the Indian ecosystem and supports Spanish companies in identifying technological partners and managing bilateral projects. In addition, the recent launch of the new Innoglobal FEDER instrument will subsidize the participation of companies from regions co-financed by European funds in international technological cooperation programs, including bilateral programs with India. This instrument broadens access to cooperation, lowering entry barriers for companies taking their first steps in international collaboration.
Finally, the launch of a new bilateral call with India’s Department of Science and Technology (DST), CDTI’s counterpart in India, will fund R&D projects jointly led by companies and research organizations from both countries. This call is multisectoral and open to any technological area of mutual interest, including AI applications, as well as projects in circular economy and sustainability, digital transformation, digital health and medical devices, advanced materials, transport, and energy transition. The aim of co-financing by both governments is to reduce the perceived risks for companies and make an initial step in collaboration viable—something many organizations would not be able to undertake without institutional support.
CDTI’s commitment to technological cooperation with India is grounded in a shared conviction among advanced economies: collaborating with countries that have complementary capabilities and shared values regarding the responsible development of science is not just one option among many, but a matter of state policy. The Spain–India Dual Year 2026 is an opportunity to consolidate and expand what seventeen years of joint work have already built. At CDTI, with the tools and experience that support us, we are committed to that goal.
