06 November 2025
B Accelerator Tower in Bilbao
As part of the World Open Innovation Conference (WOIC 2025), taking place on 6 November at 16:00 at the B Accelerator Tower in Bilbao, the academic study “Blazing the trail: Describing and assessing a new policy instrument whereby indirect tax incentives fuel collaborative innovation” will be presented. The study was developed by an international team of researchers led by the University of Deusto, in collaboration with Henry Chesbrough, professor at the Haas School of Business (University of California, Berkeley) and recognised as the “father of open innovation”.
The study provides a comprehensive analysis of Bizcay’s 64Bis policy, highlighting it as a pioneering indirect tax incentive to promote collaborative R&D. Unlike traditional direct grants, this mechanism allows companies to transfer their tax benefits to external funding agents who support high-impact scientific and technological projects, thereby fostering collaborative innovation ecosystems between developers and funders.
The study shows that companies benefiting from the 64Bis incentive between 2017 and 2021 increased their acquisition of technical knowledge and significantly improved their intangible assets compared with comparable firms. These results confirm the potential of the instrument as an effective alternative to conventional grants. The analysis also identifies three optimal collaboration configurations — basic research, applied research, and use-inspired research — and highlights the key role of pre-existing networks between companies and institutions in maximising the impact of the incentives.
The event, chaired by Itxaso Berrojalbiz, Bizcay’s Deputy for the Treasury and Finance, will feature the participation of Macarena Cuenca, Dean of Deusto Business School, and the co-authors of the article: Ferran Vendrell-Herrero (University of Edinburgh), Óscar Bustinza (University of Granada), Mikel Larreina and Marco Opazo-Basáez (University of Deusto), together with Henry Chesbrough.
This presentation is part of WOIC, an event that brings together over 150 academics and open innovation experts from around the world in Bilbao, consolidating the city as a global benchmark for open innovation and university–business collaboration. An example of this, according to Professor Vendrell-Herrero, is “the case of the 64Bis policy, which demonstrates how tax incentives can become a driver of collaborative and sustainable innovation”.
Policy and academic implications
The research offers recommendations to improve the design and implementation of fiscal instruments in innovation policy. These include minimising the role of intermediaries in favour of direct networks between promoters and funders, avoiding continued dependence on the incentive, and encouraging collaboration with public institutions such as universities.
From an academic perspective, the study represents a pioneering contribution to the field of fiscal policy for innovation. By using real data and a quasi-experimental design, it provides solid evidence on how these incentives can strengthen regional open innovation ecosystems, especially in contexts with fiscal autonomy, such as Biscay.
Furthermore, this work reinforces Biscay’s role as a pioneering region in innovative fiscal policies and its global standing as a benchmark for promoting collaboration between the private sector, government, and academia.
About 64Bis
The 64Bis tax incentive allows an R&D company to transfer its tax deduction to a third-party funder in exchange for direct investment in the project. This indirect mechanism for promoting innovation encourages collaboration among economic actors, driving private funding supported by public backing. Introduced in Bizcay in 2016, its implementation has grown steadily, establishing it as a benchmark for taxation applied to collaborative innovation.
