With an estimated population of 7.7 million inhabitants (2021), Catalonia is the second most populated Autonomous Community in Spain. It is organised in 947 municipalities and “veguerias”, 41 counties (comarcas) and 4 provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida and Tarragona.
Catalonia stands out for having a very successful cluster policy, which has been in operation for 30 years. Thus, clusters play a crucial role in supporting the Catalan business fabric. Concretely, Barcelona is one of the most powerful provinces in terms of clusters.
In addition, Barcelona is considered the most innovative city as it is the 5th best ecosystem of the EU to create a start-up and it is the 4th ecosystem of the EU with the highest number of scaleups. In fact, The Catalan government promotes initiatives to continue positioning the city of Barcelona as a true hub for urban innovation, research and modernization through the creation of self-sufficient and sustainable management solutions to improve public policies, services and goods with a social impact. The Catalan research system, which has a high capacity to produce, attract and retain talent, is an internationally recognized model of success.
Learn more about the innovation framework of Catalonia and DOWNLOAD the FULL report here.