Francisca Arán

Sector: Footwear, technology and adhesives   

Francisca works dealing with innovative and sustainable technologies enabling the transformation of the footwear industry towards the new green and digital paradigm. She works in collaboration with the footwear value chain companies, technological centres, universities, industrial associations, and public organisations. 

She has deep experience on the management and development of international projects focused on new product and processes development for the innovation in the footwear industry, including aspects such as IPR, value chain, emerging markets, quality standards and compliance in order to improve companies’ competitiveness, in the framework of research and innovation European Programmes such as Horizon, LIFE, Interreg, Erasmus, SWITCHASIA, among others 

At INESCOP, she is actively involved in the development of several technological demonstrators focused on digital transformation, footwear recycling, sustainability, and enhancing footwear user experience. These demonstrators aim to bring emerging technologies closer to footwear companies to accelerate their implementation.

Author of several scientific and technical publications dealing with material science, key enabling technologies, recycling, environmental impact, sustainability, digital industry, footwear comfort, footwear value chain,among others. She is a member of the European Standardization Committees dealing with footwear and related issues. Since 2003, she is General Secretary of the Spanish Group on Adhesion and Adhesives, and recently she was named as Director of the Footwear Chair San Crispin of the Miguel Hernández University.