HEIs, Research Centers and Companies for regional development The case of Piemonte.
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Transcript of HEIs, Research Centers and Companies for regional development The case of Piemonte.
HEIs, Research Centers and Companiesfor regional development
The case of Piemonte
• Piemonte is a region in North-western Italy with 4.5 mln inhabitants and a GDP of about 100 mln €
• The key challenge is reversing long-term economic decline and promoting transformation (OECD Review, 2009)
• Large industries are declining or relocating, less SMEs than Italian average
• New constitutional powers allow regions to foster innovation (2005)
19/04/23 ISMB – Copyright 2011 2
The regional context
• Since 2006, the Regional System of Innovation, in the framework of ERA, aims at
– building a new regional governance for innovation and industrial reconversion
– Merging overlapping initiatives
– Creating a culture of evaluation
• The program mobilized 350 mln € in 3 yrs. (80 from SFs)
• Significant pressure from central government to cut public spending
• For Regional Authorities: Fragmentation and Discontinuity
– Attitude towards spreading investment across businesses and sectors
– Resistance of sectors which are excluded from smart specialization roadmap
– Tendency to change roadmap when majorities change
• For HEIs / Research Centers: Academic Culture
– Wrong system of incentives
– Scarce possibility to hire staff devoted to TT
– Budget constraints
• For Companies: Investment Survival Dilemma
– Tendency to underprice innovation
– De-industrialization / de-localization
– Complex procedures to access funding (esp. for SMEs)
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Barriers to smart specialization
• By Regional Authorities
– Persuading the local ecosystem to focus on narrow set of objectives
– Piloting Innovation Poles and other regional funding schemes towards smart specialization strategies
– Persuading HEIs to change the structure of incentives
– Using public procurement as a leverage, acting as a market flywheel
• By HEIs / Research Centers
– Contributing bottom-up to the determination of the more promising sectors for smart specialization
– Promoting focused R&D&I activities, including those financed with own funds
– Working within the innovation ecosystem
– Providing career incentives to TT activities
• By Companies
– Accepting to adequately price innovation and to invest in it
– Accepting to reconvert towards smart specialization target fields
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Possible contributions
• Locally– Change of mentality, from fragmented support to systemic
governance– Coordination of overlapping initiatives– Harmonization of public and private funds– New structure of incentives for HEIs
• At the EU Commission level– Providing guidance on smart specialization strategies– Favouring continuity of policies– Helping local authorities to elaborate common expectations
with HEIs and business (knowledge-based economy)– Transmitting culture of evaluation– Conditioning the allocation of SFs to be consistent with EU
policies (e.g. EU2020, Innovation Union, etc.)– Promoting local-global connectivity
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How to make it happen?
• ISMB is a non-for-profit Research & Innovation Center operating in the
ICT domain in cooperation with private enterprises and institutions
• ISMB has been set up in 2000 by a private foundation (Compagnia di
San Paolo) and a University (Politecnico di Torino) and then joined by
industrial partners: ST Microelectronics, Telecom Italia, SKF
• ISMB can act as a liaise between different actors of the innovation
ecosystem
• In 2010 ISMB, Politecnico di Torino and
the Torino Wireless Foundation created an
Innovation Front End to help businesses
and institutions accessing innovation
• The IFE and similar initiatives can help
regional decision makers to target smart
specialization efforts
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The ISMB model
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Contact Information
Francesco FerreroTechnology Transfer ManagerHead of Innovation Front End
[email protected]. +39 335 6056494