The Director of IMDEA Energía, David Serrano, participated last February 17 in the Innovation and Collaboration Conference: Driving the Future of Sustainability from Madrid, held at the Tech Lab Auditorium in Móstoles.

The event was part of the second year of the Madrid Vuela Sostenible hub, an initiative of the Community of Madrid aimed at accelerating the development of technologies for the production of Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) through public–private cooperation. IMDEA Energía plays a leading role in this project as an innovation center.

David Serrano took part in the roundtable discussion entitled “Public–Private Collaboration,” alongside representatives from the regional administration and the business and technology ecosystem, including Vicente Parras, Deputy Director General for Technological Innovation of the Community of Madrid; Rafael Luque, CEO & Co-Founder of Ariema; Javier Viña, Co-Founder and R&D Grants Manager at Evoenzyme; and Emilia Martínez, Director of Asset Optimization, Mathematics and Tech Labs at Repsol, who moderated the session.

The debate highlighted the need to strengthen cooperation mechanisms among research centers, companies, and public administrations in order to accelerate knowledge transfer and bring innovative solutions to market.

The conference also featured roundtable discussions focused on academia–industry relations and the creation of strategic alliances, addressing the technological, regulatory, and industrial challenges associated with the decarbonization of the aviation sector.

About Madrid Vuela Sostenible

The MADRID VUELA SOSTENIBLE technological innovation hub aims to generate and share knowledge on new technologies in the fields of decarbonization and the circular economy, facilitating waste recovery processes for their subsequent use as raw materials in the production of low-carbon aviation fuels.

This will help accelerate the deployment of new industrial processes that contribute to the transition toward a more sustainable energy model, reducing CO₂ emissions and helping to mitigate global warming.

Within this initiative, IMDEA Energía is working on exploring new sustainable SAF production routes through the conversion of CO₂ and various types of urban, agricultural, and industrial organic waste, as well as the use of yeasts—establishing synergies between biotechnology and catalysis—while also assessing their sustainability from environmental, economic, and social perspectives. In doing so, IMDEA Energía contributes to strengthening research and innovation, increasing visibility to address emerging global challenges in the field of sustainable mobility.