Good practice Examples - RIS

2. Emilia-Romagna Innovative Region - Italy

Background and Context

Located in the north-east of Italy , in the centre of the country's most productive area, Emilia-Romagna has an extension of about 22.000 sq. km and nearly 4 million inhabitants. Its pro capita GDP is one of the highest in Italy and the 13th in Europe . Its employment rate is well above the European average and, with nearly 400.000 enterprises marked by high technological and product specialisation, Emilia-Romagna ranks among the leading European regions for entrepreneurship and economic dynamism.

Achievements

One of the peculiar characteristics of Emilia-Romagna's structure of production is its industrial district system: industrial poles with hundreds of specialised and independent small and medium-sized businesses operating in the same sector, which collaborate, compete and are concentrated in demarcated areas.

Many research projects are developed collaboratively between research bodies and enterprises. As for performance indicators, 15% of these projects brought to the creation of a new enterprise, assigned to exploit the research results. All universities and research centres are actually increasing and enhancing their activities regarding spin-offs :

AlmaCube, the incubator created by the University of Bologna and two local foundations has generated in the last year 12 new enterprises.

In the Ferrara University , a spin-off centre has been lately created, which has already generated five spin-offs, of which two participated directly by the university. A new incubator is being designed together with ENEA and Technopolis.

In all universities seats of Emilia-Romagna ( Bologna , Cesena , Faenza , Ferrara , Modena , Reggio, Parma and Piacenza ) a Spinner Point is active. Spinner Points were created and are managed by the Spinner Consortium, composed of Aster, Fondazione Alma Mater and Sviluppo Italia, with the objective of favouring technology transfer and promote the creation of innovative spin-offs.

38 public and private innovation centres for technology transfer operate in the region, ranging from ERVET the regional development agency to consortia between enterprises.
Among these, particularly active are the three technological parks of the region :

CENTURIA-RIT, created from the merging of two pre-existing parks, respectively Centuria, born in Cesena in 1995 as a service centre for innovation and research for the will of a group of big enterprises, and RIT (Romagna Technological Innovation), created in 2001 by 23 private companies and participated also by the Municipality of Faenza, the Province and Chamber of Commerce of Ravenna and an Association of Romagna Municipalities.

CRIT (Centre for Research and Technology Transfer), "brain broker" created in 2001 by 14 large companies located in the area of Modena and Bologna together with the industrial association and the two universities of Bologna and Modena.

Parma Tecninnova, born in 2000, has realised about 20 research agreements between enterprises and the university in sectors like acoustics, meccatronics and information technologies.

For what concerns education and training, further to the university system, further 10 high technical schools operate in the region and more than 150 technical vocational training centres. The strong tradition for technical training is confirmed .

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