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)

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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

francesco.ferrero@ismb.itwww.ismb.itMob. +39 335 6056494