Hidalgo focusing on research and development in science and technology

Since the beginning of its industrial history, innovation has played a major role in Hidalgo’s development. It was in Pachuca that Bartolomé de Medina discovered the so-called patio process, which uses mercury amalgamation to extract silver from ore, back in 1554. This innovation would go on to be used in the global mining industry for 300 years.

In search of a stand-out economic vocation for the state in the 21st century, Hidalgo’s government is aiming to become a centre for research and development (R&D). The state government describes the incorporation of science, technology and innovation as one of three so-called cross axes of public policy that should be taken into account across all areas.

With 13 R&D centres putting the state third from the bottom nationally in terms of number of such facilities per 100,000 inhabitants in 2016, Hidalgo’s government did not encounter a particularly amenable backdrop to meeting this goal when it took office. In its favour, however, the state boasts three science and technology parks that the authorities are looking to develop as key centres of economic growth: the Centre for Technology and Business in Ciudad Sahagún; the Hidalgo Scientific and Technological Park in San Agustín Tlaxiaca; and the Pachuca City of Knowledge and Culture.

Knowledge Economy

Plans laid out by the state authorities highlight the incorporation of research, technological development and innovation in education as essential to creating a society and economy based on knowledge. The Council of Science, Technology and Innovation of Hidalgo (Consejo de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación de Hidalgo, Citnova) is the institution primarily charged with this task.

Reflecting the newly elevated status of science, technology and innovation, the government has removed Citnova from under the Secretariat of Economic Development (Secretaría de Desarrollo Económico, SEDECO) and turned it into an independent entity that reports directly to the state governor. “This is effectively a strengthening of the institution,” Alonso Huerta, director of Citnova, told OBG. “We have much closer access to all sectors – not just economic development.”

Moving on from Mining

Nothing stands as testament to this vision quite like the Pachuca City of Knowledge and Culture, a new science and technology park. With mining’s heyday in Pachuca long gone, the city was left without a strong economic vocation, according to Huerta. “Looking for that vocation, it emerged that generation of knowledge was a very important area,” he told OBG.

Citnova’s objective is to turn the Pachuca metropolitan area into a “cluster of knowledge”. According to Oscar Suchil, director of the city, the new science and technology park, which is being built as a smart city, is aimed at generating innovation with a hidalguense identity and a social impact.

If the current emptiness of the 170-ha site is perhaps an indicator of the size of the challenge facing Hidalgo, the vastness of the space and futuristic entry arch also serve as good metaphors for the government’s level of ambition. The state’s vision for 2030 is for the hidalguense entrepreneurial environment to have become synonymous with high-impact entrepreneurship. The administration’s strategy envisages centres of research, technology and innovation “that attract different players in the global ecosystem to collaborate on new projects that change the realities of the world”.

The city being developed in Pachuca is one such centre. Announced in early 2013, backed by then-President Enrique Peña Nieto and the National Polytechnic Institute (Instituto Politécnico Nacional, IPN) as its anchor tenant, the city’s goal is to “cement a society based on knowledge, culture and innovation that contributes to increasing competitiveness, productivity and social well-being in Hidalgo”.

IPN will house its largest campus outside Mexico City in the centre, with 10,000 students expected to study there once the project is completed. Suchil estimates there will be 25,000 residents and visitors living in the city in 10 years’ time. Initially focused on textiles and apparel, industrial metals, agro-biotechnology, and information and environmental technologies, under the administration of Omar Fayad Meneses, the state governor, the city has added logistics and aerospace to its selected sectors. “We are looking to become not just a national point of reference, but an international one,” Suchil told OBG.

Early Tenants

Already, it can boast an impressive list of educational and scientific institutions in the process of setting up within the park. The National Hydrocarbons Commission is moving four of its litotecas (mineral collections) across Mexico to establish a central collection in the city. Additionally, the National Seismological Service – in conjunction with the National Autonomous University of Mexico – will build an alternate monitoring centre at the site.

Furthermore, the city is serving to activate Hidalgo’s aerospace sector, with the Mexican Space Agency set to establish a facility at Pachuca. It will work with the Newton Fund to convert two antennae in nearby Tulancingo – virtually out of action since they were built to broadcast the 1968 Mexico City Olympics – into radio telescopes.

There will also be R&D centres of national importance for the textile and apparel industries, in agro-biotechnology, and transport and logistics – with a collaboration of Georgia Tech University – among other partners. Outside of academia, multinational players such as Petricore, which provides analysis to oil exploration companies, and Duons, the French network technology company, have also set up operations in the city.

Quadruple Helix

The City of Knowledge and Culture is evidence of the quadruple helix model – in which government, academia, business and society come together to drive development – at work. For the government the business arm of this helix is key to its drive to bring more and better jobs to the state via a focus on science, technology and innovation.

“This environment is designed to work for the benefit of companies that want to come to invest in Hidalgo and be motors of growth,” Suchil told OBG.

One of the issues that the state government raised when it took office was that science, technology and innovation policy had not been directed to the productive sector in the past. Changing this means harnessing Hidalgo’s higher education sector and the graduates it produces, many of whom struggle to find suitable jobs for its graduates. The state’s numerous tertiary institutions can also play a role in encouraging the private sector to invest in R&D.

“Two decades ago we did not have the higher education institutions, but now we do,” Huerta told OBG. “It is time to push on, and the development of these research centres are the next stage of the consolidation of the knowledge economy.”

If Citnova and the city succeed, and Hidalgo can become a model in this field, it will become easier to attract firms with a focus on R&D, Huerta believes. The Citnova director admits that it is not a simple process, given these are structural changes, but he says the state is well placed after recent efforts.

The government has stated that the fundamental challenge in R&D is to drive the virtuous circle between the insertion of human capital educated in science, technology and innovation and make the most of them in technological and industrial development, which should lead to more job creation.

Business Collaboration

One of the specific tasks that SEDECO set itself in this area is to facilitate collaboration between educational or research institutions and businesses on developing strategic projects and improving productive processes.

Citnova itself runs an initiative called Young Masters and Doctors in Industry. The programme offers grants for recent graduates of master’s and doctorate degrees to work in the private sector. Firms eligible to participate must be small and medium-sized companies interested in starting or strengthening research activities, technological development, and/ or innovation management. “We offer the grants for a year and the expectation is that the company then hires the graduates,” Huerta told OBG.

Amid the wave of private investment that has arrived under this administration, there are already signs of companies taking R&D seriously. Food group Grupo Lala, for example, announced in October 2017 that it would be investing MXN1bn ($54m) in its deli meats factory, using the Nutri Deli brand.

As well as making the plant the most modern in the sector in Mexico, the development will also include a centre for technology and innovation that will focus on creating tools to ensure the quality and safety of raw materials, developing products, and adapting them to market demands and consumer preferences.