The Chair for Smart Industry signs an agreement with Repsol

Repsol, a leading company in the Spanish energy sector, has joined the Chair for Smart Industry (Comillas ICAI) at Comillas Pontifical University, as a sponsor company. The Rector of Comillas Pontifical University, Julio L. Martínez; the General Director of Technological Development, Resources and Sustainability at Repsol, Luis Cabra; the Vice-Chancellor for Research and Internationalisation at Comillas Pontifical University and Co Director of the Chair for Smart Industry, Mariano Ventosa; and the Director of Digitalisation and Architecture at Repsol, Enrique Fernández Puertas all attended the signing of the agreement.

Thanks to the incorporation of Repsol, there are now twelve sponsoring companies, that is, twelve world leaders in the most competitive sectors of the economy. Each of them contributes to the creation of an outreaching common space, aiming at taking advantage of the opportunities provided by the new paradigm of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. 

According to Enrique Fernández Puertas (Repsol), “collaboration between academic entities and companies is crucial for researching and developing the benefits which digitalisation can bring to our industrial fabric. Joining as a sponsoring company to this Chair will allow us to share ideas and experiences in fields as important as sustainability, energy efficiency, and security. In addition, it will contribute to train our professionals so as to anticipate and take better decisions thanks to the technology and new tools in the era of smart industry, hand in hand with an institution as prestigious as Comillas Pontifical University.”

According to Mariano Ventosa, “Repsol is a leading industrial company in the adoption of innovative solutions through the use of their digital technologies with the aim of turning the company into a benchmark in sustainability within its sector. The membership of Repsol to the group of sponsor companies of the Chair for Smart Industry will contribute to the development of new research, development and innovation projects, as well as to the training of the new professional profiles the Fourth Industrial Revolution is demanding.”

In 2017, the School of Engineering (Comillas ICAI) at Comillas Pontifical University, in collaboration with ten relevant industrial and technological companies, created the Chair for Smart Industry, aiming at taking advantage of the opportunities provided by the Fourth Industrial Revolution, characterised by the intensive use of the new digital technologies, and at facilitating the digital transformation.

Codirected by Mariano Ventosa, Vice Chancellor for Research and Internationalisation at Comillas Pontifical University, and by Bernardo Villazán, president of the 4.0 Industry Observatory, the Chair seeks to be a meeting point for Sponsoring Companies, and professors and researchers, who are experts of the Chair in experiences, opportunities, risks and solutions in the “Fourth Industrial Revolution”, thus creating an informative, updated, and specialised platform in order to spread information and encourage the debate on Smart Industry in Spain.

Repsol is a global multi-energy supplier working to facilitate the move towards an energy model with fewer emissions, providing solutions which improve efficiency, committing to natural gas, the generation of low-emission electricity, new forms of sustainable mobility and self-consumption, among other initiatives. It employs over 25,000 people, has assets in 35 countries and its products are sold in over 90 countries, reaching 10 million consumers.

The company is fully committed to the fight against climate change. Its aim is to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, the first company in its sector to take on this ambitious goal. For this purpose, Repsol has aligned its strategy, investments, and business plans with the climate change objectives of the Paris Agreement, in addition to setting a decarbonisation path with intermediate targets from 2020 to 2040. Technology and digitalisation are the pillars of the company, a benchmark in innovation, sustainability and efficiency in the energy sector.

Repsol develops its own technology in its research centre Repsol Technology Lab, collaborates with prestigious partners, and has several investment funds in order to participate in start ups which offer solutions related to advanced mobility, new materials, circular economy, and digital technologies.