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Role of universities
The mission of universities in Italy has also been reformed in the past few years as well. Until recently, teaching and research staff in public organisations were restricted from holding positions in private companies, which acted as a significant barrier to technology transfer and spin-offs from universities and public research centres. Now this restriction no longer applies and, at the same time, universities have gained much greater autonomy. The new system is designed to encourage universities to reorient themselves to the needs of industry and society, in addition to their educational and research roles.
Equally important in encouraging technology transfer has been the recent reform of the intellectual property rights system. As a result, researchers working in public institutions are now the owners of their inventions, rather than the institutions, and are entitled to receive remuneration for any industrial exploitation of their results.
National research plan
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Italy’s 20 regions now have considerable autonomy in setting and implementing their own industrial and innovation policies.
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In 2002, the MIUR adopted a national research plan covering the next three years. This aims to “support the capacity of the industrial system to exploit the competitive advantage of research and innovation, and to improve the ability of the national research system to favour the modernisation and diversification of the production system, and the creation of high-tech companies”.
The plan, covering 2003-06, contains four priority axes:
- Advancing the frontiers of knowledge;
- Supporting research aimed at developing key multi-sectoral enabling technologies;
- Strengthening industrial research, to enable enterprises to turn knowledge and technologies into products, processes and services with increased added value; and
- Promoting the capacity of SMEs to innovate and form clusters at local level.
The government’s budgetary restrictions, relating to efforts to reduce overall national debt and reduce the annual budget deficit, have meant that public funding programmes for research and innovation activities are heavily oversubscribed, and overall funding has been cut in recent years. One solution proposed in the 2003 budget was to tax sales of cigarettes and use the resulting revenue to fund research in universities and research institutions.
Regional initiative
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The small companies which are so important to Italy’s economy have shown a remarkable capacity to sustain and reinvent themselves.
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Italy’s regions do have a considerable degree of autonomy in programming their own innovation and industrial support activities. However, competence for these activities tends to be shared between regional and national governments, particularly in terms of finance.
Puglia is the most active region in the Mezzogiorno (south of Italy), according to Roberto Cingolani of the University of Lecce, an advisor on innovation issues to Puglia’s governor. “We want to create high-tech districts, and develop co-operation between academia and industry. Our regional plan (see box) contains a range of actions to work towards these goals.”
Fields on which Puglia is focusing include food and agronomy, biosciences and IT, and mechatronics. “The food industry employs less advanced technology than others, but has a big impact economically: Puglia produces 30% of Italian wine and olive oil,” says Cingolani. “In the IT field, we are further from reaching our goal, but already we have a strong base with companies such as ST Microelectronics, Agilent, and Alenia Marconi Systems operating here. Our aim is to create networks around top-level research facilities.”
Cingolani says that when they were drawing up their plan they looked around Italy at what other regions were doing, but he believes the legislative and regulatory system in Italy means measures need to be shaped specially. “We have some way to go,” he acknowledges, “We need to improve our infrastructure – establish these technology platforms in the region – before we will really be competitive at national or European level.”
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EU Presidency
Italy holds the Presidency of the Council of the EU from July to December this year. With the EU’s targets to increase research spending by around one-third to 3% of GDP by 2010, and to improve the competitiveness of European industry, Italy is keen to advance a number of initiatives to improve the environment for innovation. The Italian government proposes that research spending should be treated as investment rather than current expenditure in assessing national deficits within the Union’s Stability and Growth Pact, given its importance in encouraging long-term growth. Recasting rules relating to state aid for research to take account of the needs of SMEs is another priority. Particular attention will be given to measures to support training and development of the human capital needed by innovative enterprises.
Italy also has a range of ideas to encourage high-tech clusters, for example suggesting tax exemptions to support investment of private together with public capital to develop clusters. Another suggestion is the introduction of EU incentives for the creation of European technology districts in which several Member States are involved, and particularly to encourage participation of the acceding states.
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Puglia’s plan
The regional plan for supporting research and technological development in Puglia focuses on improving business capacity to innovate.
In common with other regions in the south, Puglia’s regional plan for R&D concentrates on industrial support and, with much of the support coming from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), creating durable economic development is at its heart. It is part of an overall structure which sees regions’ parallel plans tied in with a national research plan. In the current programme, approved in May, Puglia’s priorities are as follows:
1. Support for innovative programmes and technology transfer to improve the region’s business fabric:
- Development of innovative projects
- Transfer of research results to SMEs and the craft sector
- Support for the creation of technological “poles”, or clusters
- Support for scientific/technological audits in SMEs
2. Development of highly skilled human resources to support the regional innovation system:
- Qualifications and training for managers in firms seeking technologies
- Qualifications and training for researchers offering technologies, e.g. spin-offs
- Training of public authorities’ staff for the promotion of innovation
- Support for innovation in the region’s further and higher education institutes
- Support for the creation of innovative companies
3. Establishment of a regional Innovation Observatory
For 2003, priority 1 has a budget of €27 million, and priority 2, €44 million, distributed as the result of calls for proposals. The region can also be expected to spend several times this amount through direct grants and contracts for activities in these same fields. Around €3 million is budgeted for priority 3.
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INNOVATION IN ITALY
