THE TRANSFER OF KNOWLEDGE FROM UNIVERSITY TO INDUSTRY: HOW A NETWORK WORKS

At the end of the last year 2014 The European Parliament approved the Reform of the Common agro-food policy (CAP) that is being now applied to the European agro. It promotes the improvement in the competitiveness of the European agro by improving the role of agriculture associations, and by promoting the innovation and investments. Economic aids will be offered to fight against the change of the climate and the loss of bio-diversity. The lack of competitiveness derived from the Spanish agro-food industry and the analysis of the factors that meet for the creation of the economic and social value derived from a clever use of information and communication technologies, ICT in the farms, makes a requirement the creation of networks to explicit the tacit knowledge into the productive industry.The implementation of ICT for improving the energy in the farms produces efficiencies. One farm is clever when the investments in human, technological and social capital supports a sustainable economic growth and produces high levels of quality in the products and services that are being offered, all together with a rational management of natural resources. For the realization of this kind of projects it is essential the putting into common of the different core competences required coming for four groups: the managerial ones from the Business Organization group at the Rey Juan Carlos University, the computing ones provided by the Alcalá de Henares University, the knowldege of infrastructure, provided by the Polythecnic University of Madrid and the technical knowledge of the industry, offered by the Cordoba University group. The first three Universities are awarded as campuses of excellence in energy and the Cordoba University is awarded as campus of excellence in agro-food. In this paper the experience on how the network is working and transferring the knowledge into the productive industry is described.