Every four years, the Olympic Games excite and inspire us with the achievements and feats of great athletes. In reality, it is the fruit of hard work over those four years, usually in the shadows. Baron de Coubertin once said that “the true Olympic spirit is that which seeks excellence through effort.” We could apply it to our reality as a country and to the challenges we face. We will be able to see the results in 4, 8, 12 years… But we must do the work every day and from now on. There is no doubt that Spain has made significant progress in recent times in social and economic aspects and, why not say it, also in sport. Today we are a benchmark country in natural and cultural heritage, but also highly valued for its infrastructure, its unbeatable conditions for the energy transition or its indisputable talent. However, the Olympic spirit also means recognizing that we still have important leaps to take and steps to take to advance faster, reach higher and be stronger as a country. We will agree that we need a high leap in innovation. In Spain, we have set ourselves a demanding bar: reaching 3% of GDP in R&D investment by 2030. This mark would place us close to the top 10 of innovative countries, compared to the 25th position we occupy today. But we will need to work on the pace and the technique if we take into account that we are still at 1.44%, far from the quality records. Likewise, the EU innovation scoreboard highlights our progress since 2017, but still places us in the third group of countries and tells us which aspects we need to improve: business investment in innovation, which currently represents 54% and should account for two thirds; the introduction of innovations by our SMEs; and the level of employment in innovative companies, given the difficulty in finding suitable profiles. We must also improve in the long jump. This will allow us to look beyond the current circumstances and establish an economic model with a long-term projection. Industry is the sector that enables economies to better withstand crises, provides sustained growth, constantly innovates and generates quality employment. Our goal of reaching 20% of our GDP is moving away year after year. We have an industrial law in the works, scheduled for this year. Political impetus is necessary, but reindustrialisation will require the support of everyone, and fundamentally, of companies. We will have to create frameworks that stimulate greater investment and attract global projects. It will also be essential to encourage the growth of our companies and, in particular, support our industrial start-ups so that they can make the leap to the market. It is clear that we will need poles. And also, to know how to use them. We already have some. The aforementioned EU scoreboard refers to our excellent digitalisation, both in terms of broadband penetration and the digital skills of citizens; also to our level of training, with an enviable population of engineers, PhDs and researchers. But if we want to reach as high as we want, we will have to train more technology professionals – according to the EU, we will need 1.5 million in the next six years. And, above all, we must attract girls to STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and fill companies with women with this training so that they can contribute their skills and different perspective. Much of the impetus we need must come from them. We will also have to throw some weights, in this case, to take them away. If we want to modernize our economic model and stimulate investment, stable legal and fiscal frameworks that offer confidence and are attractive to companies will help. Specifically, we must improve our mechanisms for financing innovation. We have an estimable system of fiscal incentives for R&D&I, but we need to make it more predictable and free of uncertainty for investment and entrepreneurial initiatives. And modernize it so that it adapts to the business reality and technological change, assuming that artificial intelligence or software are unavoidable in the innovation that is done today. In an extremely competitive world, legal security and agility are essential for large investment projects to choose Spain as a destination. More than heavy steel balls, they should be javelins that fly with lightness and precision and impact the sectors in which we have a differentiating potential. Hence the importance of achieving transparent and bureaucratic processes, which shorten administrative burdens. This agility is critical for attracting investments, but also for the deployment of European funds, which still need to regenerate our innovative muscle if they are well oriented and directed to those industries that lead the technological transformation, face climate change and allow us to make a difference. Let's not forget the relays. Collaboration between companies and institutions will be essential to gain speed and power. They may be short relays, like those we saw during the pandemic and which highlighted our enormous capacity to respond to adverse situations. But long-term ones will be essential, the large public-private collaboration projects that set high goals. For example, territorial, economic and social structuring, transforming depopulated areas or provinces into ecosystems of innovation, industrial heritage, knowledge transfer, quality employment and a pull effect for new companies. It will also be essential for the industrialisation of R&D: that young companies that have generated projects with a very high industrial and technological component receive the baton in good conditions to make a great career in Spain and in international markets. Certainly, it is an Olympic challenge. But we have historical examples that show us that, when we face challenges with determination, we win them. Without going any further, our own trajectory in the Games, where we have grown to be among the leading countries, both in representation and success. And one last fact: we have taken 382 athletes to Paris. Of these, 192 were women and 190 were men. Let's take note of how far we want and can go. And let's believe it. Jesse Owens said that 10 seconds is a lifetime of training. For us, it could serve us for our entire lives and for the next generations.Sergio Rodriguez He is the president of the I+E Innovation Foundation Spain. 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