The CTA Innovation Observatory today presented a report on Innovation Trends 2026 at an event held at CaixaForum Seville, attended by nearly one hundred representatives from companies and other innovative organisations. The event was opened by the President of CTA, Beltrán Pérez, and the Regional Minister for Universities, Research and Innovation, José Carlos Gómez Villamandos.

Villamandos highlighted CTA’s role as a driving force within the Andalusian innovation system, promoting collaboration between companies, universities and research centres. “It is a great ally in boosting the competitiveness of the regional productive sector, attracting investment and talent, and promoting a more sustainable, knowledge-based economic development model,” he said.

He therefore stressed that the Innovation Observatory presented by CTA, as well as the Innovation Trends 2026 report published through this body, constitute “useful and valuable tools that will enable companies to become aware of trends and of the new opportunities opening up in different sectors from an innovation perspective, and, based on this knowledge, to act and make decisions.

CTA President Beltrán Pérez explained that “after establishing ourselves as an expert and recognised voice in the innovation ecosystem during our first 20 years, we are now launching the CTA Innovation Observatory as a radar to help monitor future opportunities driven by R&D and technology.” He stressed that “the aim of the CTA Innovation Observatory is to provide innovative organisations with guidance and key insights into technological trends and opportunities to improve their competitiveness.”

Meanwhile, CTA’s Director of Advanced Innovation Services, Fabián Varas, outlined the main highlights of the CTA Innovation Trends 2026 report, describing it as “a valuable overview of the key technological trends to watch in 2026 across seven strategic economic sectors, as well as in the field of European projects and the multilateral market — areas in which CTA participates as a project partner and also advises companies and other innovative organisations on how to take part.” Varas explained that “to select the trends, we have drawn on the experience and knowledge of the CTA team, which works on a daily basis with companies, public administrations and researchers and has first-hand insight into the developments and disruptions that will have an impact in the medium term.

In addition, a panel of business success stories was presented, featuring companies that stand out in some of the trends highlighted in the report. The panel, moderated by CTA’s Head of Content and Media Relations, Beatriz Colado, included Iván Frutos, Corporate Director of the Agriculture Area at AGQ Labs; Daniel Morales Wagner, Chief Executive Officer of Ingelectus; Jesús Sotomayor Palma, Deputy Director of Innovasur; and Laura Rico Sánchez, Co-CEO of LentiStem Biotech.

Highlighted innovation trends

AGQ Labs is highlighted by the CTA report as an example of the agri-food sector trend focused on using the microbiome (the microorganisms that live in the soil) to develop more sustainable and profitable agriculture, while Ingelectus is the featured success story in the Energy and Environment sector within the trend of enhancing the flexibility of the electricity system.

Innovasur, headquartered at the Geolit Science and Technology Park in Jaén, is highlighted as an example of the ICT sector trend known as “domain-specific generative models (DSLM)”, which refers to generative AI tailored to each company or sector — that is, artificial intelligence systems trained on data from a specific field to generate more accurate, useful and consistent content within that domain.

The Granada-based biotech company LentiStem Biotech is highlighted in the CTA report as an example of the biotechnology sector trend in advanced therapies, which are innovative medical treatments that use modified genes, cells and tissues to treat or prevent diseases that previously had no effective therapeutic options. Specifically, LentiStem Biotech leads one of the two temporary joint ventures (UTE) awarded to participate in the pre-commercial public procurement process of the CART_ANDALUCÍA project. This project aims to develop innovative cancer therapies and is managed by the Andalusian Public Foundation Progreso y Salud, which is part of the Regional Ministry of Health and Consumer Affairs of the Government of Andalusia.

The other innovation trends highlighted in the report are as follows:

• In the Aerospace sector: the integration of electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft into urban mobility networks.
• In the Building and Civil Engineering sector: industrialised construction supported by digital twins and generative artificial intelligence.
• In the Industrial sector: artificial intelligence applied to predictive maintenance in industrial processes.
• In the area of European projects: the circular bioeconomy (understood as the sustainable and circular use of biological resources to produce food, materials, energy and services) and critical raw materials for energy, mobility, semiconductors, defence and aeronautics.
• In the multilateral market area: repositioning to fill the gap left by the Trump Administration in its participation in multilateral and development aid institutions.

CTA Innovation Observatory

The aim of the CTA Innovation Observatory is to identify technological trends that provide innovative organisations with guidance on where to focus their next steps, through reports, expert talks, thematic events and thought leadership.

The CTA Innovation Trends 2026 report is the first publication of this Observatory, as CTA, as a foundation that promotes and accelerates R&D&I focused on competitiveness, is constantly monitoring emerging innovation.