The Basque Innovation Agency, Innobasque, has appointed Óscar Julià, innovation director at Sener, as a new member of its Board of Directors and Executive Committee. The appointment has taken place during the last General Assembly of the association, held in Donostia this Wednesday. This annual meeting is one of the main reference events in the Basque innovation ecosystem. The event was opened by the president of Innobasque, Manuel Salaverria, and closed by its honorary president, the lehendakari Iñigo Urkullu.

The Innobasque Board of Directors is composed of 60 members, experts in strategic areas in R+D+i, such as technology, science, or business management. In this sense, Óscar Julià will contribute with his knowledge and transversal vision of innovation processes, as director of this area in a highly diversified engineering and technology group, with nearly 4,000 employees worldwide.

Óscar Julià is a telecommunications engineer and has completed the Executive Development Program (PDD) at IESE Business School. During his professional career, he has worked in engineering projects in different markets (mobility, aerospace, energy, health and marine), contributing his knowledge in innovation processes and contributing to the development of new products and services. He is currently director of innovation and digitalization at Sener (a company he joined in 2001), a role in which he promotes internal entrepreneurship initiatives, open innovation and the design and implementation of new business models. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the mobility cluster IN-MOVE, is a trustee of the technology centre Tekniker and has served on the boards of ASINCA (Catalan Association of Engineering and Architecture) and Telecos.cat (Catalan Association of Telecommunications Engineering and Digital Technologies).

Since its founding in 2007, Innobasque, together with its partners, aims to promote and monitor innovation in the Basque Country. As a member of the Basque Council for Science, Technology and Innovation, it evaluates Basque policies in these matters, as well as the impact and level of internationalization of Basque R&D&I in Europe. In addition, it helps companies to innovate through actions generated by experimentation with its partner organizations.

With this honour, the Ministry of Defence recognises his work and commitment to the values of the Armed Forces, highlighting his contributions to national defence as well as his dedication to the principles upheld by these institutions.

The ceremony took place at the Retamares Base in Pozuelo de Alarcón, in an event presided over by Teodoro Esteban López Calderón, Chief of Defence Staff. More than 1,000 people attended the ceremony.

José Julián Echevarría (born in Bilbao, 1965) holds a degree in mechanical industrial engineering from the Higher Technical School of Engineering (ETSI) of Bilbao, University of the Basque Country (UPV), and has completed a master’s in business administration at the University of Deusto. He is currently the Managing Director of Aerospace and Defence at Sener, a role he has held since 2013 when it was a business unit, and since 2019, as a subsidiary encompassing all of Sener’s activities in Space, Defence, and Science. He leads a team of more than 1,000 professionals.

Echevarría has had a long career at Sener, where he has worked since joining as an engineer in 1989. Additionally, since 2022, he has chaired HEGAN, the Basque Country’s aerospace and space cluster.

The Sener industrial engineering and technology group has announced the opening of a new technical office in Seville, in Tablada, near the port of the provincial capital. The new office will focus mainly on the design and development of guidance, navigation and control (GNC) systems and systems engineering for the aerospace and defence markets, where Sener has experienced significant growth in recent years. From its new office, Sener will provide services for current and future projects in these sectors, while its location will make it easier for the company to expand its network of partners and suppliers. Staffing all of these newly created jobs in this office will be 30 highly qualified professionals.

The Managing Director of Aerospace and Defence at Sener, José Julián Echevarría, notes that: “our growth in the space and defence markets requires us to incorporate highly qualified talent, especially in GNC. Seville has a relevant aerospace ecosystem, with industry, research centres and highly prestigious universities in this field. We at Sener also hope to help create a pull effect on Andalusian industry with this decision”.

Significant growth in the aerospace and defence markets

Sener is an engineering and technology group with a strong industrial vocation, with nearly 4,000 professionals in offices on five continents and in-house production centres in Spain and Poland, providing its customers with its own high-value-added solutions. In recent years, it has experienced significant growth in all areas, including Aerospace and Defence, and particularly in GNC.

In the aerospace and defence sectors, Sener is involved in several international projects such as NGWS/FCAS, which is strategic to the development of Europe’s future combat air system, and also in programmes financed by the European Defence Fund (EDF), such as SWAT-SHOAL, where it is the technical manager, which will allow European armed forces to collaborate effectively on systems based on swarming technologies to integrate manned and unmanned naval assets. Sener also participates in European unmanned aerial vehicle programmes, such as Eurodrone and Sirtap. In the space market, Sener has developed and is currently working on numerous GNC systems, like the AOCS of ESA’s EUCLID probe (launched last July), the GNC for the re-entry of Space Rider (Europe’s first reusable space transport system), or the one for Proba-3, a mission to demonstrate satellite formation flying, where Sener is also the lead contractor and which will be launched in the fall of 2024.

In recent months, due to its growth in the aerospace and defence sectors, Sener has opened a high-tech, high-performance centre in Santander aimed at the design and development of electronic components and radio frequency subsystems for antennas, and it has started construction on a new production and engineering services centre in Zamudio (Biscay), with an initial investment of over 25 million euros. The group recently announced the acquisition of the company SCR, Sistemas de Control Remoto. Now, on top of these investments is the Seville office, which also reinforces Sener’s capabilities in Aerospace and Defence.

The engineering and technology group Sener has obtained the medium level of the National Security Scheme (ENS), endorsed by the Spanish National Cryptological Center (CCN). With this recognition, Sener positions itself among the companies that offer services to the public sector with better protocols to guarantee data security, confidentiality, and availability, as well as services offered by electronic means.

This certification confirms Sener’s continued commitment to a production model in which security and cybersecurity are fundamental elements to guarantee adequate provision of services. Likewise, it establishes a climate of trust and security before public administrations and their clients.

The ENS, voluntary for companies, guarantees citizens who interact with public administrations and their suppliers that their data, communications, and activities are protected against actions aimed at violating the integrity and confidentiality of their information. This certificate helps to demonstrate, both on the part of the administrations and their suppliers, the existence of an organizational, operational framework and security measures that protects against such violations, being endorsed by independent entities authorized by the CCN.

The President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the Spanish Minister of Defence, Margarita Robles, held a meeting yesterday with the main representatives of the Spanish defence industry to thank them for their commitment in the current complex geopolitical context and to urge them to reinforce the positioning of the Spanish industry as a key player in the recently announced European Defence Industrial Strategy. The meeting was attended by the President of Sener, Andrés Sendagorta, along with counterparts from other companies in Spain.

During the meeting, in addition to highlighting the role of Spanish industry in increasing the level of strategic autonomy of the armed forces, topics such as the relevance of R&D efforts and talent in leading large European defence programs were addressed. In this sense, Sener participates in key programs for the security of the continent such as HYDEF, COMMANDS or SWAT-SHOAL, as well as being part of the SATNUS consortium, which leads the activities of the technological pillar of remote operators of the future European combat system NGWS.

The Spanish President also highlighted the value of the Spanish defence industry, the fourth largest exporter in Europe and eighth in the world, with more than 400 companies that employ more than 36,000 people directly, providing high-tech solutions.

More information, on La Moncloa’s website.