Description

Abstract (English)

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

This document analyses the innovation system of the Spanish defence industry as of July 2026. Its purpose is twofold: to offer a comprehensive, verified diagnosis of the ecosystem —its actors, its aggregation structures, its infrastructure, its knowledge flows, its institutional fit, its technological capabilities and its governance— and, on the basis of that diagnosis, to propose an actionable roadmap for its strengthening.

The work is organised into ten blocks that move from the particular to the general and from the descriptive to the prescriptive. The first three characterise the ecosystem "from within": the map of actors (Block 1), the business aggregation structures or clusters (Block 2) and the physical experimentation and validation infrastructure (Block 3). The next three set it in context: the knowledge flows that circulate through it (Block 4), its fit within the national and regional innovation systems and within European funding (Block 5) and its comparison with the world's leading ecosystems (Block 6). The following two examine two critical dimensions in depth: technological capabilities and their gaps (Block 7) and the ecosystem's governance and leadership (Block 8). The final two integrate and project forward: an integrated diagnosis in the form of strengths, weaknesses, levers and risks (Block 9) and a roadmap across three time horizons (Block 10).

Each block combines an analytical development with reference tables and figures. All data have been cross-checked against verifiable primary or secondary sources, cited in the general bibliography at the end of the document. Where two reliable sources disagree on a figure, the discrepancy is set out explicitly and left unarbitrated, for the sake of rigour. The author's own assessments and elaborations —technology-maturity maps, positioning matrices, scorecards— are identified as such wherever they appear.

Note on the relationship with the author's previous work

This document empirically develops and verifies a dimension that the Strategic Sectoral Analysis. The Defence Industry in Spain: comprehensive diagnosis, competitive position and roadmap 2026-2036 (Romero Valiente, 2026) addressed transversally but not monographically: the innovation system of the Spanish defence industry. Where this work expands, updates or corrects data published in that earlier work, it is expressly indicated with a citation to the relevant section, applying the same criterion of traceability and verification that governs both documents. In particular, this work develops section R3 of the previous work's VRIO analysis, on the network of test and validation infrastructure.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Spanish defence industry's innovation ecosystem arrives at 2026 at the best moment in its history and, at the same time, at its point of greatest risk of disappointment. In barely two years (2024-2026) it has built almost all at once what it had been lacking: a complete governance architecture (the DIGEID; the €10,471 million Industrial and Technological Plan for Security and Defence; the National Committee for Security and Technological Sovereignty, based in the Presidency; and the CEOE's Security and Defence Committee), the largest validation-infrastructure network in its history (CETEDEX, BLET and CEUS together exceed €628 million, to which is added access to the NATO DIANA network) and a specialised private-capital base whose investment capacity exceeds €3,000 million. To this is added a singular and consolidated strength: Spain is the European Union country involved in the greatest number of projects in the 2025 call of the European Defence Fund, and it obtained a record return under Horizon Europe.

And yet all of the ecosystem's weaknesses converge on a single one, which is the thesis of this work: the absorption gap. Spain knows how to generate and cooperate on knowledge competitively, but it does not yet know how to absorb it and turn it into deployed capability. This is demonstrated by the contrast between its leadership in the EDF and its modest 4% of places secured in the NATO DIANA 2026 Challenge; between that same leadership and one of the lowest allocations of the European SAFE capabilities fund (€1,000 million); between an industrial base that masters systems technologies (radar, naval, communications, electro-optics) and a structural dependence on critical enabling technologies (semiconductors, frontier artificial intelligence, quantum computing); and between cutting-edge validation infrastructure and the absence of a rapid-adoption mechanism to turn a validated prototype into a contract. The definitive cancellation of the FCAS programme by France and Germany in July 2026 further illustrates the fragility of flows that depend on third-party decisions.

Spain's challenge, therefore, is no longer to build —it has done so in record time— but to execute and absorb. The proposed roadmap orders action across three horizons: in the short term, to activate the under-used instruments (public procurement of innovation, SAFE, the EDF's cascade funding) and to connect the infrastructure with SMEs; in the medium term, to build the slow-yield capabilities (a national talent programme, a consolidated sovereign innovation fund, the start of semiconductor sovereignty) and to structure collaboration through flagship anchor projects; and in the long term, to complete the two fundamental reforms —a permanent rapid-adoption mechanism and sovereignty over critical enabling technologies— and to consolidate a governance model that can outlast political cycles. France, by institutional affinity, is the most transferable model. And the metric that will sum up the success of the whole effort is a single one: that SMEs —today 80% of firms but only 8% of sales— comfortably exceed that share. If the absorption gap is closed, the largest investment in the sector's history will have been worthwhile; if not, the risk is an ecosystem that innovates for others.

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