Valencia reinforces their role as battery technology hub with a new Chair for UV-PowerCo

The Universitat de València (UV) and the battery cell subsidiary of the Volkswagen group, PowerCo, have signed this morning in the historical building of the Nau the creation of a new chair “which will help us to revolutionize and lead advance battery technology all over Spain, reinforce the I+D on the matter and join forces between science and industry to consolidate Valencia not only as an industrial pole, but also as a knowledge hub.”

In fact, the chair, signed by the Principal of the UV, M. Vicenta Mestre, the PowerCo Corporate General Manager, Javier Rivera, have as main goal to promote the future talent, uploading in a permanent way the academic curriculum of the degrees and postgraduates linked to chemistry with the new needs of the industry. “Valencia will be the cradle of knowledge about the battery technology that will allow more enterprises of the area to set up in the Community”, they pointed out.

Both PowerCo and the Universitat de València have shown their conviction that “this collaboration is going to allow the Valencian Community to increase the number of specialised professionals and highly qualified in energetic and battery storage destined to electronic mobility and to increate the employability of young people; but also that it will reinforce the position of PowerCo as industrial leader in an area in rapid evolution and recent creation, contributing jointly to position themselves as key actors in the global energetic transition”, the representatives of both entities have indicated during the encounter.

Due to this, among the activities developed will include the hiring of research staff; the encouragement of specialised studies on batteries in Master’s Degree Final Project and Bachelor's Final Project or the development of internships for university students in the facilities of the company in Sagunto and Valencia.

Furthermore, it has been foreseen the participation of the PowerCo’s team in the Master of Continuing Education in Battery Technologies where it will be taught content directly linked to the productive process of gigafactory of PowerCo for young people to know the bases of technology and the procedures employed in the Sagunto plant.

“Our main objective is that the scientific capabilities on battery technology generated in the frame of the chair could be spread in an international level, turning us in a referent region for industry and research all over the world”, Javier River and Mavi Mestre have pointed out, who also have influence in the will to participate in encounters and national and international congresses with first level experts “in which the technology newness and advances in I+D+i generated in the chair’s field about this technology considered as strategic by the European Union are exposed.”