From Firm-Level Alignment to Institutional Coordination: European and National Funding in Spanish Aviation

This study explores entities’ strategy to combine multiple governmental funding sources to complement their research and innovation activities. It focuses on the case of Spanish aeronautics entities and their participation in both European and national research and innovation programs over two successive periods. Using a mixed-methods approach, this study combines qualitative interviews with three representative entities and a quantitative analysis of project-level data. The interviews are first used to identify key variables and analytical categories, such as entity type, Joint Undertaking membership, technological focus, and temporal evolution, which then guide the quantitative analysis. Quantitative data on budgets, funding, participation, and technologies are analyzed across both periods and programs, including pairwise correlation analysis. The findings show that Spanish entities actively seek to align national and European funding at both financial and technological levels, although with uneven success in some cases. Joint Undertaking membership and position within the aeronautical value chain strongly influence the ability to participate in both programs and to accumulate funding. While many entities develop informal alignment strategies, these efforts often exceed their organizational capacity, particularly in the second period. The results highlight the need for formal, government-level coordination mechanisms to support effective alignment between European and national aeronautics funding programs.