Multilevel Governance
and
Territorial Cooperation
Edited by
M
ARINAD’O
RSOGNA© Copyright 2016 Editoriale Scientifica s.r.l. Via San Biagio dei Librai, 39 - 80138 Napoli
www.editorialescientifica.com info@editorialescientifica.com ISBN 978-88-9391-041-5
MARINA D’ORSOGNA, LOREDANA GIANI, EUSAIR
Strate-gy for the Revival of Territorial Cooperation VII
GINO SCACCIA, The Governance of the Adriatic-Ionian
Macroregion within the EU Strategy (EUSAIR) 1 PIETRO GIORGIO TISCAR, Blue Growth and EUSAIR:
Fish-ery and Aquaculture Integrated Management Model
along the Adriatic Coasts 63
LOREDANA GIANI, Connecting the Region and EUSAIR 87 ENZO DI SALVATORE, Environmental Protection at the
Multilevel Environmental Governance: What
Per-spectives for the Adriatic Macro-Region 175 PIETRO GARGIULO, ADOLFO BRAGA, Sustainable Tourism
within the European Union Policies and Law and the Macro-Regional Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian
Region 235
ANDREA CICCARELLI, GIANMARCO CIFALDI, Institutions,
SMEs, Innovation: the Abruzzo Region in the Frame-work of the Macro-Regional Strategy for the Adriatic
in the Framework of the Macro-Regional Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region
by Andrea Ciccarelli* and Gianmarco Cifaldi**
SUMMARY: 1. Introduction. – 2. The EU Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region. – 3. Research, innovation and SMEs in Italy. – 3.1. Innovative activity in Italy. – 3.2. The questions of sectors and size. – 4. Abruzzo’s SMESs: contextualisation in an economic and productive framework. – 4.1. Innovation and business com-petitiveness: the Abruzzo Region within the Adriatic and Ionian Macro-Region. – 4.2. The role of Institutions and academic spin offs. – 5. Innovation policies and public funds. – 5.1. The Europe-an level. – 5-2. The National Level. – 5.3. The Regional (Abruzzo) Level. – 6. General areas of public intervention. – 6.1. Potential spe-cific intervention lines. – 7. Security policies in the Adriatic and Io-nian Macro-Region. – 8. Some concluding remarks. – 9. References. 1. Introduction1
Market globalisation and an increasingly more incisive boost to the internationalisation of businesses and offshoring of manu-facturing processes are deeply changing the economic system, thus forcing to a complex reorganisation of production, management, institutions, rules.
* University of Teramo.
** University of Chieti-Pescara “G. D’Annunzio”.
1 The authors wish to thank Dr Stefania Di Nardo and Dr Alessandra
Marzia-ni for their invaluable help in doing bibliographical research and in discussing some aspects on internationalization and support measures to SMEs and business inno-vation. Of course, the authors are the only responsible for any potential mistake or omission made in this paper.
Most literature recognises the innovation ability of businesses as an essential leverage to improve production efficiency and com-pete in international markets.
The boost to technological and organisational innovation is becoming fundamental to increase the competitive ability of bu-sinesses and, indirectly, of the areas where they are based. In any case, different innovative dynamics seem to underpin productivity, growth and, more generally, competitiveness differentials among businesses, sectors and regions2.
This is why, in nearly all European initiatives research and develop-ment activities – as well as those aimed at product, process or organiza-tional innovation – have a key role, especially with regard to the activity of small and medium-sized enterprises that, as it is well known, do not always manage to keep pace with the spurs they constantly undergo.
In such a context, so-called “Macroregional Strategies” are not an exception. They have been created to pool knowledge, ideas, rela-tions within territories sharing similar structures, problems, develop-ment potentials: in fact, even though general objectives are different, innovation and research activities are a “hidden purpose”, which al-most all the initiatives have to aim to, in order to guarantee a balanced and enduring development of businesses and territories involved. 1. Research, innovation and SMEs in the European Union
There is strong evidence that countries that have historically invested most in research and innovation have outperformed those that have invested less.
2 On the relations between growth, productivity and innovation see, among
others: Barro R. J., Sala-i-Martin X. (1997), «Technological Diffusion, Convergence and Growth», in Journal of Monetary Economics, no. 106(2), pp. 1-27; Parisi M. L., Schiantarelli F., Sembenelli A. (2006), «Productivity, Innovation and R&D: Micro evidence for Italy», in European Economic Review, no. 50, pp. 2037-2061; O’Mahony M., van Ark B. (eds) (2003), EU Productivity and Competitiveness: An Industry
Per-spective Can Europe Resume the Catching-Up Process?, Luxembourg, Office for
Official Publications of the European Communities; Del Colle E. (2006), Tecnopoli.
The EU is the main “knowledge factory” in the world: it ac-counts for almost a third of the world’s science and technology pro-duction. Nevertheless, we are experiencing a kind of “innovation emergency”: EU spending in Research & Development (R&D) is 0.8% of GDP less than the United States and 1.5% less than Japan every year. EU market is the largest in the world, but it remains highly fragmented, with a high burden of small enterprises (espe-cially in some countries, such as Italy) with a low propensity to innovation. The risk is falling behind the major global players, and that least advanced countries (such as China and South Korea) re-ach us fast.
We must invest in R&D and innovation because this could im-prove Europe’s competitiveness, boost growth and create jobs. Our future is strictly connected to Europe’s power to innovate and its capacity in turning (great) ideas into products and services that will bring growth and create new jobs.
In the framework of EU strategy, research and innovation con-tribute to make Europe a better place in which to live and work.
In order to achieve these targets, EU countries are encouraged to invest 3% of their GDP in R&D by 2020 (1% public funding, 2% private-sector investment); it is estimated that this will lead to a GDP growth of around 80 million Euros and the creation of about 3.7 million new jobs.
Since the 1950s, provisions for research have been included in the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC, 1951)3 and in the
European Atomic Energy Community4 (EURATOM, 1957)
trea-ties; in 1957 the treaty setting up the European Economic Commu-nity (EEC)5 led to a large number of research programmes (e.g. on
energy, the environment and biotechnology). It was not until the
3 See the “Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community”,
ECSC Treaty, Paris 18 April 1951.
4 See the “Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community”,
Euratom Treaty, Rome 25 March 1957.
5 See “the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community”, EEC
1980s that the framework of European research got a shot in the arm: in 1984 the first Framework Programme (FP1)6 for research
was launched. These programmes became the EU’s main funding instrument for research7. FP1 focuses on research in
biotechnolo-gy, telecommunications and industrial technology. In 1986 resear-ch becomes a formal Community policy, with a specific resear-chapter in the Single European Act8; the objective is to «strengthen the
scien-tific and technological basis of European industry and to encoura-ge it to become more competitive at international level». From 2000 onwards actions for research followed one another: the EU agrees to work towards a European Research Area (ERA – a unified research in which researchers, scientific knowledge and technology can cir-culate freely)9, creating the European Research Council (ERC – in
order to support the frontier research across all fields, on the basis of scientific excellence)10 and the European Institute of Innovation and
Technology (IET – with the aim of fully integrate all three sides of the ‘knowledge triangle’: higher education, research and business)11.
In the last few years, EU has launched the Innovation Union (an initiative consisting of more than 30 action points aimed at impro-ving conditions and access to finance for research and innovation in
6 FP1 was established through a Council resolution of 25 July 1983; see OJ
C208, 4/8/83 p 1.
7 In this case too efforts are devoted to certain primary sectors, such as
biote-chnology, telecommunications and industrial technology.
8 The Single European Act (SEA) is a document signed in Brussels on 28
Fe-bruary 1986 to develop a Single Market Programme (SMP): the Member States of the European Community committed themselves to set up by the end of 1992 the internal market as «an area without internal frontiers in which the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital is ensured».
9 COM(2012) 392 final, Brussels, 17.7.2012.
10 The European Research Council was formally established on 2 February
2007 within the European Treaty; see the “Treaty of Lisbon amending the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty establishing the European Community”, signed in Lisbon, 13 December 2007.
11 See Regulation (EC) No 294/2008 of the European Parliament and of the
Council of 11 March 2008 establishing the European Institute of Innovation and Technology.
Europe) and – in 2014 – Horizon 2020, the biggest EU research and innovation framework programme ever launched12. Horizon 2020
will manage a total of nearly €80 billion of funding over 7 years (2014 to 2020), and it’s assumed that these investments will attract additional private and national public investment.
EU policies for Research and Development and Innovation are linked to the provisions favouring SMEs in a certain territory. Policies supporting SMEs have become widespread in all advanced economies since 1980s, thus contributing to emphasize the role of SMEs in modern economy13.
The article 6 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union lays down that “The Union shall have competence to carry out actions to support, coordinate or supplement the actions of the Member States” and industry is included among the areas of such action. The amendments of the Treaty of Lisbon in 2007 led to a se-paration between the area of industry and that of research and deve-lopment, focusing, in particular in article 179, second paragraph, on SMEs within the sector “Research and technological development and space”, through which the Union encourages “undertakings, including small and medium-sized undertakings research centres and universities in their research and technological development activities of high quality”, thus supporting their cooperation efforts and notably aiming at “permitting researchers to cooperate freely across borders and at enabling undertakings to exploit the internal market potential to the full, in particular through the opening-up of national public contracts, the definition of common standards and the removal of legal and fiscal obstacles to that cooperation”.
12 COM(2011) 808 final, Brussels, 30.11.2011.
13 In 1990s OECD estimated that one quarter of all the funds allocated
throu-gh programmes supporting the economies of Member Countries were earmarked for SMEs. The same OECD, from 2000 onwards, emphasized the role of SMEs, as they represent the largest source of job creation, operating in several economic sec-tors, especially in hi-tech ones, as well as in service sectors. It has to be underlined that SMEs innovate differently from big industry, since they aim at creating new typologies of products and new business regulatory approaches.
If we consider only the last years14, in 2000 the General Affairs
Council approved in Lisbon the European Charter for Small En-terprises, which recognizes the pivotal role SMEs have in European economy growth, and asks to Member States and the Commission to adopt all the initiatives to foster SMEs’ creation and develop-ment. To this end, the Heads of State or Government and the Euro-pean Commission are committed to acting according to ten action lines (including the strengthening of innovative and technological
14 The same OECD, since 2000, has implemented a number of initiatives: 1)
the drawing up of the Bologna Charter on SME policies, formally adopted on 15 June 2000 (during the First OECD SME Ministerial Conference on “Enhancing the competitiveness of SMEs in the Global economy: Strategies and Policies”). The Charter acknowledges the key role carried out by SMEs in world economy as well as it recognizes the double face of globalization, since it gives SMEs many opportunities but at the same time entails lots of risks, first of all due to the al-ready existing gap among different Countries, hence among their economies; 2) the Istanbul Ministerial Declaration on Fostering the Growth of Innovative and
Internationally Competitive SMEs. During the Conference (2nd OECD SME
Mini-sterial Conference on “Promoting Entrepreneurship and Innovative SMEs in a Glo-bal Economy”, Istanbul, 3-5 June 20014), the necessity of reconsidering policies of
SMEs as dominant business organizations at global level, that play a key role in dri-ving sustainable economic growth and job creation while contributing to the social, cultural and environmental capital of nations; is stressed; 3) Third OECD Global
Conference on “Better financing for entrepreneurship and SME growth”, focusing
on issues related to SME access to financing, that sometimes is difficult and leads to deep financial gaps. Therefore, the Conference suggests a series of interventions to be implemented, including strengthening the initial phase of SME, particularly innovative SME, financing (Brasilia, 27-29 March 2006); 4) Fourth OECD
Ministe-rial Conference on “Removing barriers to the SME access to International markets”,
focusing on the challenges facing SMEs when trying to access international markets (Athens, 6-8 November 2006); 5) OECD Working Party on SMEs and
Entrepre-neurship “Enhancing the role of SME in Global Value Chains”, whose output was
the OECD Tokyo Statement on strengthening the role of SMEs in Global value
chains. The Conference found that governments, multinational enterprises,
busi-ness associations and international institutions could play a significantly greater role in assisting SMEs to enter and to rise to the challenges of active participation in global value chains. Among the actions suggested to such institutions, it has to be mentioned that of promoting SME innovation capacity through supporting their training and development (Tokyo, 31 May-1 June 2007).
capabilities of small businesses, cooperation among businesses and cooperation between businesses, education and research centres).
Such acknowledgement affects directly innovation policies as well: since the 6th Framework Programme, horizontal research activities have been scheduled where SMEs participate, aiming at helping European SMEs in traditional and new sectors, strengthe-ning their technological capabilities and developing their ability to operate at a European and international level.
In 2003 the Commission presented a Green Paper on “Entrepre-neurship in Europe”15, that states that Europe must “foster
entrepre-neurial drive more effectively”. Such text highlights the need to set up “more new and thriving firms willing to reap the benefits of market opening and to embark on creative or innovative ventures for commer-cial exploitation on a larger scale” and to “help firms to exploit know-ledge and international opportunities”. Moreover, it stresses that the internal market has led to more competition, but also to new oppor-tunities for expansion: in fact, firms can innovate in different ways, including technological development, quality management, new ways of organising work or distribution channels, brands or design.
In 2008 the European Commission developed an instrument to strengthen SMEs: the Small Business Act (SBA)16. It is an Act
defi-ning the action lines of the European Union in favour of SMEs so that they can develop themselves and create jobs. Between 2008 and 2010, the Commission and the Member States implemented actions aimed at reducing administrative burdens, facilitating SME funding and favouring their access to new markets. The SBA provides for ten action lines, including the no. 8 on the promotion of upgraded skills and all kinds of innovation in SMEs. Action plans start from a law simplification aiming at fostering research, development and innovation; then they speed up the process of emergence of high growth enterprises. This is possible by developing SMEs’ capabili-ties of research and innovation, above all thanks to a wider coordi-nation of programmes and coordi-national initiatives.
15 COM(2003) 27 final, Brussels, 21.1.2003. 16 COM(2008) 394 final, Brussels, 25.6.2008.
Over the last few years, the European Commission has intro-duced the new ten-year socioeconomic strategy of the European Union, Europe 2020 – A strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusi-ve growth, formally adopted by the European Council on 17 June 2010. The objective of the strategy Europe 2020 is to create more jobs and better lives. It proves that Europe is able to promote smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, to find the path to create new jobs and to offer a sense of direction to our societies. Furthermore, the Strategy envisages the launch of the new Framework Programme “Horizon 2020”, paying particular attention to SMEs: they may collaborate to projects as part of a consortium and may be suppor-ted by a purposely-creasuppor-ted instrument for smaller highly-innova-tive businesses, namely the SME instrument, to support research and innovation activities and SMEs’ capabilities during the various steps of the innovation cycle; such instrument helps SMEs with a high potential of development of innovative ideas for products, ser-vices or processes, ready to cope with global market competition. 2. The EU Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region
Within such general framework, we find macroregional strate-gies that, as well reported in the EU website17, represent «an
inte-grated framework endorsed by the European Council, which may be supported by the European Structural and Investment Funds among others, to address common challenges faced by a defined geographical area relating to Member States and third countries located in the same geographical area which thereby benefit from strengthened cooperation contributing to achievement of econo-mic, social and territorial cohesion».
Macroregional strategies are essentially based on a sense of territorial identity of the various subjects encompassed (citizens, stakeholders, institutions) and involve territories sharing common
17
geographical, cultural and economic characteristics and problems. Substantially, each macroregional strategy: i) represents an integra-ted framework of Member States and third countries locaintegra-ted in the same geographical area; ii) faces common challenges; iii) benefits from a strengthened cooperation for territorial, social and econo-mic cohesion.
Principles at the root of the strategy are integration (particu-larly regarding existing strategies and programmes and financial instruments), political and resource coordination, cooperation among countries and sectors involved, multilevel governance, par-tnerships18.
Funding is a further substantial aspect: in fact, specific or addi-tional funds are not scheduled: “The two existing macro-regional strategies operate with no additional EU funds, no new institu-tions, and no new legislation. This has required more coherence between funds, structures and policies. The strategies have created working structures around priority areas, selected in a bottom-up process of consultation, with political leadership in each area taken by participating countries, regions or organisations, supported by the Commission as facilitator”19.
Since the Strategy does not rely on one specific EU budge-tary line or funding instrument, it can use various forms of EU funding such as: the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF); the Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA); the EU programme for the Competitiveness of Enterprises and Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (COSME); the Programme for the En-vironment and Climate Action (LIFE); Links between the Rural
18 For a detailed legal and political analysis on macroregional strategies, in
par-ticular on the Adriatic and Ionian strategy, see, in addition to the works present in this volume, Gargiulo P., Le Macroregioni nel contesto delle politiche dell’Unione
Europea: le specificità della strategia macroregionale Adriatico Ionica (EUSAIR),
in A. Ciccarelli, T. Forcellese (eds), L’Europa del XX Secolo. Il futuro dell’Unione
Europea tra convergenze politico-istituzionali e integrazione socio-economica,
Edi-toriale Scientifica, Naples, 2015.
Economy and Development Actions (LEADER); Trans-European Networks-Transport (TENT); Trans-European Networks-Energy (TEN-E); HORIZON 2020.
All these EU funding are relevant to the four Pillars.
SMEs and Institutions can also obtain resources from some financial institutions at international level (such as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Investment Bank (EIB), the Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB), the World Bank (WB)); then, the Strategy must also seek resources at regional, local, public and private level.
A good practice of financial coordination is represented by the Western Balkans Investment Framework (WBIF): it is a joint initia-tive of the EU, International Financial Institutions, bilateral donors and the governments of the Western Balkans, formed to support economic and social development and the EU integration of the Western Balkan countries by providing technical and financial as-sistance for strategic projects in the areas of infrastructures, energy efficiency and private sector development.
Under present conditions, the European Union has adopted measures for setting up four macroregional strategies:
– The EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region (EUSBSR – 2009)20
– The EU Strategy for the Danube Region (EUSDR – 2010)21
– The EU Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region (EUSAIR – 2014)22
– The EU Strategy for the Alpine Region (EUSALP – 2015)23
As to the Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region, we will not dwell on detailed actions to undertake, referring to other ks in this volume for accurate information, but we consider wor-thwhile to provide a general outline, also to understand how SME, research and innovation issues fit in the strategy.
20 COM(2009) 248 final, Brussels, 10.6.2009 21 COM(2010) 715 final, Brussels, 8.12.2010. 22 COM(2014) 357 final, Brussels, 17.6.2014. 23 COM(2015) 366 final, Brussels, 28.7.2015.
As it is known, the Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region is made up of four pillars: 1) Blue Growth; 2) Connecting the Re-gion; 3) Environmental quality; 4) Sustainable Tourism.
Within such four pillars, two elements are of essential impor-tance: i) Governance; ii) Research, Innovation and SMEs develop-ment (defined as “cross-cutting issues” within the strategy).
Essentially, the projects submitted – by firms, institutions, citizens – must be embedded to those four pillars above mentioned; within these pillars, it is necessary to look at innovative dynamics, the role of SMEs, the possibility of carrying out research and development actions.
We have to remember that on the one hand all the strategy has to be pursued bearing in mind the three NOs previously highlighted: i) NO additional EU Funds; ii) NO new Institutions; iii) NO new legi-slation. On the other hand, it is required not to forget some keywords present in the official documents approved by the EU:
I. Integration; II. Coordination; III. Cooperation;
IV. Multi-Level Governance; V. Partnership.
Substantially, by collecting all the information inferable within the strategy, the same strategy gives rise to an innovative activity, and, more exactly, to an “Organisational Innovation”.
Strengthening R&D and Innovation and enhancing SME com-petitiveness are core issues of all four Pillars. In particular, innova-tion was considered crucial for blue growth, for developing new transport options, for improving environmental quality and for bolstering the tourist sector. While relevant for all four pillars, the business dimension was considered especially important for Pillar 1 and 4, i.e. in the context of smart specialisation.
Activities linked to strengthening cross-border links between existing clusters involving SMEs were identified as crucial for deve-loping new services and products.
The cross-cutting issue “Research, innovation and SMEs deve-lopment” can intervene inside the four Pillars in this way:
– Pillar 1 – Blue Growth: the first (blue technology) and the second topic (fisheries and aquaculture) have a strong focus on research and innovation. Actions may involve the transfer of R&D results to seafood processing and to new products, so driving SMEs com-petitiveness in the sectors concerned. There is also a strong focus on “brain circulation” and on establishment of joint research and innovation platforms in the Region. In the third topic, research can improve the capabilities in collecting data and sharing knowledge. The Actions in which the cross-cutting issue is more involved within each pillar are the following:
UÊ ÕiÊÌiV }iÃ\Ê>ÊÌ iÊVÌÃ
UÊ Ã iÀiÃÊ>`Ê>µÕ>VÕÌÕÀi\Ê>ÊÌ iÊVÌÃ
UÊ >ÀÌiÊ >`Ê >ÀiÊ }ÛiÀ>ViÊ >`Ê ÃiÀÛVi\Ê >Ì>Ê >`Ê Knowledge sharing; Maritime skills
– Pillar 2 – Connecting the Region: Innovation in management of tran-sport infrastructure and energy could have a central role in all the pillars; improving transport and energy connection represent a key driver in economic and social development and small and medium size enterprises could have both direct (i.e. through work, services and supplies contract) and indirect benefits (more efficient energy and transport network could increase investment, growth and jobs). The Actions in which the cross-cutting issue is more involved within each pillar are the following:
UÊ >ÀÌiÊÌÀ>ëÀÌ\Ê>ÊÌ iÊVÌÃ
UÊ ÌiÀ`>Ê ViVÌÃÊ ÌÊ Ì iÊ ÌiÀ>`\Ê «ÀÛ}Ê Ì iÊ accessibility of the coastal areas and islands
UÊ iÀ}ÞÊiÌÜÀÃ\Ê>ÃÊ««iiÃ
– Pillar 3 – Environmental Quality: many of the Actions in the topics depends on innovation and research activities; building a common platform is crucial in order to enhance scientific co-operation and to share existing knowledge; disseminations of research results could be improved through the creation of an integrated observatory and data exchange platform across the Region and the sectors involved.
The Actions in which the cross-cutting issue is more involved within each pillar are the following:
UÊ / iÊ>ÀiÊiÛÀiÌ\Ê>ÊÌ iÊVÌÃ
UÊ /À>Ã>Ì>Ê ÌiÀÀiÃÌÀ>Ê >LÌ>ÌÊ >`Ê L`ÛiÀÃÌÞ\Ê >Ê Ì iÊ Actions
– Pillar 4 – Sustainable Tourism: the “Sustainable tourism” Pillar is closely integrated with the others, and embodies substantial research and innovation activities, vitally important in terms of SMEs development. The research activities can be essential in fields such as the creation of an Adriatic-Ionian brand or the implementation of information and communication techno-logies in order to increase the attractiveness of territories and SMEs competitiveness.
The Actions in which the cross-cutting issue is more involved within each pillar are the following:
UÊ ÛiÀÃwi`Ê ÌÕÀÃÊ vviÀÊ «À`ÕVÌÊ >`Ê ÃiÀÛViî\Ê >Ê Ì iÊ Actions
UÊ -ÕÃÌ>>LiÊ>`ÊÀiëÃLiÊÌÕÀÃÊ>>}iiÌÊÛ>-tion and quality): all the Ac-ÕÃÌ>>LiÊ>`ÊÀiëÃLiÊÌÕÀÃÊ>>}iiÌÊÛ>-tions
3. Research, innovation and SMEs in Italy
It is no coincidence that literature substantially agrees that Italy’s deficit of innovative ability underpins our Country’s great difficulties in terms of economic growth, which has turned to be constantly lower than that of the main European Countries over the last few years: consider that since 2006 Italy GDP has dropped, on average, by 0.7% per year, following a trend not comparable to that of the main Euro-area Countries (over the same period, Ger-many has grown on average by 1.1% per year, the United Kingdom by 1%, France by 0.6%, only Greece, among EU-28 Countries, has recorded a worse performance, -2.4%).
After all, the annual report of the Bank of Italy for 2011 underlined that «… Strengthening the recovery and returning to a more satisfac-tory growth path will require innovative strategies to raise producti-vity and profitability […] Firms’ capacity to innovate is a basic sprin-gboard to improved productive efficiency and successful competition
in international markets», and, since then, Italy has undergone three years of recession and only in 2015 it experienced a positive trend24.
Although also important institutions have sounded a warning, difficulties persist in creating the basic conditions to renew the pro-ductive, economic and social framework. Such renewal is necessary to take up the challenge posed by emerging economies on the one hand, and those Countries with a development level similar to ours on the other hand. These latter, compared to us, have shown more sensitivity to those aspects able to affect significantly the ability to compete.
Ultimately, it seems that our Country has reached the most achievable level of technology and knowledge in current time, thus being destined to substantially low growth in the near future, lacking a spur that enables to move upward our technology fron-tier. That is, there is no the ability to expediently activate a virtuous circle between innovation – productivity – growth, allowing Italy as a whole to be again a leader in international markets.
3.1. Innovative activity in Italy
Making a synthesis of a Country’s innovation ability may be not only difficult but also impossible, considered the nature itself of inno-vation processes, entailing several facets and being hard to estimate.
Oslo Manual25 has outlined the guidelines for estimating the
innovati-ve activity of businesses and institutions, distinguishing between product26
24 Banca d’Italia (2011), Annual Report – Year 2010. 117th Financial Year,
Rome.
25 OECD – Eurostat (2005), Oslo Manual. Proposed Guidelines for Collecting
and Interpreting Technological Innovation Data, Paris.
26 “A technologically new product is a product whose technological
characte-ristics or intended uses differ significantly from those of previously produced pro-ducts. Such innovations can involve radically new technologies, can be based on combining existing technologies in new uses, or can be derived from the use of new knowledge. A technologically improved product is an existing product whose per-formance has been significantly enhanced or upgraded”. OECD – Eurostat (2005),
and process27 innovation, and identifying with these names all those
products and processes introduced by businesses to be considered technologically new or significantly improved compared to the ones previously available.
It follows that innovation can involve several activities - not only the scientific and technological ones, but also the commercial, finan-cial, organisational, etc. 28, ones. Just this exceptional heterogeneity
leads to a substantial difficulty to “list” every single activity on the one hand, and to estimate each of them on the other hand, until ma-king an overall synthesis, both at the level of single businesses, and at the level of the productive (and institutional) system as a whole.
However, it is necessary to introduce some statistical data in order to mark out a preliminary comparison among activities in the main European Countries.
Firstly, we analyse research and development expenditure – even if it does not represent a real innovative activity, it is regarded as that part of “structured” activity earlier than real innovative activity. Anyway, most highlight a close relationship between Research and Develop-ment activity and business innovation, also taking into account that in modern economy (and society) “discoveries” seem ever less linked to casual events, but ever more linked to a structured “laboratory” activi-ty, carried out by highly-skilled technical and scientific staff.
27 “A technological process innovation is the adoption of technologically new or
significantly improved production methods, including methods of product delivery. These methods may involve changes in equipment, or production organisation, or a combination of these changes, and may be derived from the use of new knowledge. The methods may be intended to produce or deliver technologically new or impro-ved products, which cannot be produced or delivered using conventional production methods, or essentially to increase the production or delivery efficiency of existing products”. OECD – Eurostat (2005), Oslo Manual, op. cit., p. 32.
28 Just as an example that surely does not include all the typologies of innovative
activities to be implemented by a business, we can mention the following: Research and Development (R&S); outside acquisition of technology services and know-how (in the form of patents, licences, trademarks, etc.); the purchasing of “embedded” technology (for example, within innovative equipment or software); design and in-dustrial planning; training activities to introduce technologically new (or significantly improved) products, services or processes; marketing of new products.
As it is well known, Italy shows a R&D expenditure (which equals 1.3% of GDP) well lower than that of more virtuous Coun-tries (Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Austria go beyond 3%) and higher only to Greece’s, within EU-15 Countries. Furthermore, it contributes to overall European expenditure by 7.6% (consider that Italian GDP represents, instead, 12.6% of the total amount). Almost two thirds of all EU-15 Research and Development activity are concentrated in Germany, France and the United Kingdom.
But what is less known is that, while public funding is substan-tially in line with what happens in other Countries (about 0.6% of GDP, compared to an average of 0.7%), private industries contri-bute much less than what happens in the rest of Europe: just 0.7% of GDP, compared to 2% in Germany and Scandinavian Countries, 1.1% in the United Kingdom, 1.5% in France. Essentially, private sector contributes towards total spending by a little more than 50%, whereas in other European Countries, this incidence rises, on avera-ge, to two thirds. The reasons of such lower propensity are generally sought in a small business dimension and in too much exposure to traditional sectors few disposed to innovate; such elements affect su-rely total activity, but they seem not to be the only decisive factor of this structural gap; we will go back to this issue subsequently.
Similar observations can be made for patents registered to the European Patent Office (EPO): according to the latest survey (2013), in Italy there are about 70 per million inhabitants, i.e. about half of what registered, on average, in Europe, and well below the perfor-mances of more structured Countries – such as Germany, Sweden and Denmark – which succeed in getting, annually, four times more.
What is reported for other output measures of innovate activi-ty seems slightly different. We refer to registered trademarks and projects, which hit values all in all similar to EU mean values29, even
29 Italy shows 1.16 community designs per each €bn (compared to the mean
value of 1.13) and 5.24 trademarks per each €bn (compared to the mean value of 5.83). As to the former case, Austria (1.65), Denmark (2.2), Germany (1.32), Swe-den (1.99) and Finland (1.82) outstrip our Country: as to the latter case, among most advanced Countries, only France (3.96) shows lower values.
though they are lower than those shown by most advanced Euro-pean Countries30.
Table 1 - Research and Development Expenditure in some European Countries, in the United States, in Japan and in China. Year 2014 (absolute and percentage values)
Total R&D R&D
private industries % of EU total per capita % GDP Austria 3,6 1.156 3,0 2,1 Belgium 3,6 881 2,5 1,8 Denmark 2,9 1.413 3,1 2,0 Finland 2,5 1.195 3,2 2,2 France 17,7 731 2,3 1,5 Germany 30,8 1.036 2,9 2,0 Greece 0,5 136 0,8 0,3 Ireland 1,1 624 1,5 1,1 Italy 7,6 342 1,3 0,7 Luxembourg 0,2 1.117 1,3 0,7 Netherlands 4,8 777 2,0 1,1 Portugal 0,8 214 1,3 0,6 Spain 4,7 276 1,2 0,7 Sweden 5,1 1.411 3,2 2,1
30 In this paper we will refer often to “advanced (European) Countries”, to
name those countries that, for their structural characteristics and development levels, may be regarded as our direct competitors within Europe: Austria, Spain, France, Denmark, Germany, Finland, United Kingdom, Sweden.
Total R&D R&D private industries % of EU total per capita % GDP United Kingdom 14,1 596 1,7 1,1 EU-15 100,00 676 2,1 1,4 United States 1.124 2,8 2,0 China 107 2,0 1,5 Japan 1.010 3,3 2,6
Source: Eurostat data processing.
The fact that part of this lack of propensity to “structured” acti-vity might be the direct consequence of detectable structural shor-tcomings in terms of tertiary and post-tertiary education should not be underestimated: Italy is at the bottom of the list as to the percentage of population aged 30-34 with a tertiary education (i.e. a degree), totalling 22.4%; its main competitors show almost twice as much percentages: France 44%, Denmark 43.2%, Sweden 48.3% and the United Kingdom 47.6%31.
Investments in research doctorates are definitely lower than the average value as well: our Country registers 1.6 new doctors per thou-sand inhabitants, and such figure put us on the same level as France (1.7), but far away from other more advanced Countries, showing va-lues between 2.2 (Austria) and 2.8 (Sweden) per thousand inhabitants. In these first lines, we have outlined some structural data; one could object that, due to the typology of businesses characterizing Italian economy – fragmented in multiple small and very small fir-ms, often family-run, and generally underfinanced and not well-di-sposed towards risk – structured investments in research and
de-31 Only Germany, among the most advanced Countries, shows a nearer value
velopment activities and registered trademarks and patents are necessarily lower than elsewhere, but an intense innovative activity smoulders, not always recordable in official statistics. Essentially, reading “structural” data would provide an approximation by de-fect of what really happens in Italy.
At least partially, this interpretation could hide a kernel of truth: if we look at the latest Community Innovation Survey (CIS) data, 39% of Italian businesses have introduced product and/or process innovations, while 45% have implemented marketing and/ or organisational innovations. In both cases, values are definitely higher than mean European ones (respectively equal to 31% and 36%), and they highlight a propensity to introduce innovations in production higher than that in almost all European Countries, also in the most advanced ones32.
Most Italian businesses, because of their nature, “make inno-vation” by acquiring technology embedded in goods and services available on the market; in such a way, the nature of suggested inno-vations, which entail less organisational and financial commitment, is typically “incremental”, thus allowing the business to take a step forward towards competitiveness. All this activity can be hardly measured and, what is worse, does not have a dramatic effect on bu-siness productivity and, consequently, on bubu-siness competitiveness and growth at territorial level33.
32 Among these, only Germany shows higher value as regards the introduction
of organizational innovations, while as to product and process innovations we fol-low only Germany (42%), Finland (40%) and Sweden (40%), whose propensity is not so different from ours.
33 Without going into details, it is worth remembering that the lack of growth
in terms of productivity is a structural problem, lasting for too long now in Italy. If we analyse only the last ten years, our Country is the only of the “advanced” Euro-pe to record a minus sign (-0.4%) in terms of yearly mean variation; over the same period, even if undergoing the same international economic crisis, other Countries show a slight growth: Germany and France +0.5%, United Kingdom +0.6%, Swe-den +1%, Spain +1%. Only Greece has a dynamic similar to ours (-0.7%). Further-more, the problem does not seem linked only to the current (and durable) interna-tional crisis (which, among other things, should hit all Countries, not only ours…):
After all, as it is underlined in most literature, most nowadays winning innovations are not incremental, but radical (and this, among other things, usually involves large changes also from the point of view of the organisation within businesses that implement them). But radical innovations usually are not the result of informal activities, but always seem to come from a constant and structured research and development activity, which thus plays a central role in creating the new within enterprises; and, unfortunately, as we saw earlier, the largest gap between Italy and more developed Countries has to be found precisely in the formalised activity (R&D, paten-ts, trademarks, etc.) that, in fact, alone accounts for most of the structural gaps between Countries.
3.2. The questions of sectors and size
Literature generally agrees in attributing some lag in terms of in-novation capacity to our Country, which is usually highlighted either by the use of synthetic indicators34, and from the analysis of basic
indi-cators (such as, briefly, we did also notice in the previous paragraphs). It seems to be less clear, however, the reasons that led to the ri-sing of this great gap between Italy and the most developed Coun-tries, although the debate is full of proposals on the causes of these poor results shown by official statistics; briefly, we will try to sum-marise, in a critical way, some of the most significant opinions.
First of all, one of the primary reasons would be the productive specialisation of our businesses, excessively biased towards tradi-tional sectors (both in manufacturing and in relation to the services offered), which are naturally less inclined than advanced ones to invest in Research and Development, innovation, etc.
the Italian performance in terms of job productivity is negative also if we take into account the last twenty years (-0.1%), according to a dynamic that is incomparable, at least in central and northern Europe.
34 The attempts to create synthetic indexes for evaluating innovative activities at
country level have been several; among others, it has to be mentioned the following: European Commission (2015), Innovation Union Scoreboard 2015, Belgium.
Therefore, another reason is business under-sizing, which leads them to mind less the newness, and, above all, less capable (due primarily to cost reasons) to participate effectively to innovative activities, even for their long-lasting difficulties in accessing credit.
Certainly, the imbalance towards traditional sectors and the small size are well known, and have been highlighted in the past by several authors: restricting the analysis to the manufacturing sector, 12.6% of employees in Italian businesses is concentrated in the textiles, clothing and leather goods sectors (see Table 2), with an about twice as much percentage compared to the European average and well away from the figures of Germany (1.9%), the United Kingdom (3.6%) and France (3.9%). Such sectors, as it is known, are among those for which the innovative activity appears moderate compared to what happens, for example, in the chemical, pharmaceutical, computer and electronics sectors. These latter ones, in contrast, affect, in terms of total busines-ses present in the economy, for only 11.6% (see Table 3), compared to the European figure of 14.3%, but, above all, to a much lower level compared to that found in France (15.6%) and Germany (17.9%).
The average Italian enterprise size is 3.8 employees for each en-terprise; in France it is 5.1, in Germany 12.1, in Spain 4.5, in the United Kingdom 10.2. If we restrict the analysis only to the ma-nufacturing sector, German enterprises (35.6 employees) show an average size four times higher than that of Italian enterprises (9.2).
Table 2. Persons employed in businesses by manufacturing sector. Year 2013 (percentage values compared to the manufacturing total amount)
Sector/ Country
Ger-many Spain France Italy
United King-dom Euro-pean Union Manufactu-re of food products 11,0 17,8 18,4 10,5 14,8 13,6 Manufactu-re of textiles 1,1 2,2 1,4 3,5 2,2 2,1
Sector/ Country
Ger-many Spain France Italy
United King-dom Euro-pean Union Manuf. of wearing apparel 0,6 2,7 1,6 5,4 1,3 3,5 Manufactu-re of leather and related products 0,2 2,0 0,9 3,7 - 1,4 Manufactu-re of wood and of products of wood, etc. 1,9 2,8 2,2 3,2 2,6 3,4 Manufactu-re of che-micals and chemical products 4,7 4,7 4,9 2,9 4,3 3,9 Manufactu-re of basic pharma-ceutical products and phar-maceutical preparations 1,7 2,1 2,6 1,6 - 1,8 Manufactu-re of rubber and plastic products 5,7 5,1 5,4 4,7 6,5 5,5
Sector/ Country
Ger-many Spain France Italy
United King-dom Euro-pean Union Manu-facture of computer, electronic and optical products 4,4 1,6 4,3 2,8 5,5 3,6 Manu-facture of electrical equipment 7,0 3,3 3,8 4,3 3,4 4,9 Manufactu-re of ma-chinery and equipment n.e.c. 15,1 5,5 6,0 12,1 8,1 9,6 Manuf. of motor vehicles, trailers and semi-trailers 11,3 7,6 7,8 4,3 5,7 7,4 Manufactu-re of other transport equipment 1,7 2,5 4,7 2,2 5,3 2,3 Manu-facture of furniture 2,0 3,5 1,8 3,8 3,4 3,3
Table 3 – Persons employed in businesses by size class. Year 2013 (percen-tage values compared to the manufacturing total amount)
Country/ Size From 0 to 9 per-sons em-ployed From 10 to 19 per-sons em-ployed From 20 to 49 per-sons em-ployed From 50 to 249 per-sons em-ployed 250 per-sons em-ployed or more Total Germany 82,3 9,9 4,8 2,5 0,5 100,0 Spain 94,7 3,1 1,5 0,6 0,1 100,0 France 94,1 3,0 1,9 0,8 0,2 100,0 Italy 95,0 3,2 1,2 0,5 0,1 100,0 United Kingdom 89,2 6,0 3,0 1,5 0,3 100,0 EU – 28 92,7 4,0 2,1 1,0 0,2 100,0 Source: Eurostat data processing
Most the literature focused on the relationships between inno-vative activity and Research and Development expenditure of busi-nesses on the one hand, and business size and sector specialisation on the other hand. Generally, it is observed a positive relationship with the business size (that is, the larger the size, the greater in-vestments in R&D and the spur to innovate), as well as significant differences are highlighted in the propensity to innovate according to the sectors of economic activity investigated, showing traditional sectors less activity.
Nevertheless, observing the data disaggregated by size and sec-tor, we may notice, among the Italian enterprises, a level of expen-diture on R&D lower than that found in other (more developed) Countries both with respect to the traditional sectors, and for those technologically advanced; similarly, although innovative activity of Italian enterprises (and their expenditure on R&D) grows as
busi-ness size increases, for each size class it always appears lower than what found elsewhere35.
If what these authors write is true, it goes without saying that the problem is not (only) under-sizing and productive specialisation; rather, it is necessary to look for it (also) elsewhere; certainly without being exhaustive, and also on the basis of certain data and the con-siderations taken into account above, we will try to bring out some elements that could inhibit the innovation capacity of businesses: – Ownership of businesses: most businesses are family-run
busi-nesses, and this fact reduces innovative activity (generally cha-racterised by high riskiness) since the financial and property sta-tus of the business correspond with that of the family. For this reason, a potential “failure” would affect not only the business activity, but also the family itself. This kind of enterprise aims at seeking the ways that enable to keep control of the enterprise in the long run too, more than just looking for new ways to deve-lop business; this is why, and it is the biggest difference betwe-en Italian and, for example, German family capitalism, manager selection does not follow criteria marked by efficiency, but it is particularly regarded the “loyalty” to the owner. As reported in a recent essay36, those businesses where all the management
corresponds with the ownership account for about two thirds of the total, compared to one third in France and Germany and just one out of ten in the United Kingdom.
– Human capital: we have already highlighted that the percenta-ge of graduates in Italy is much lower than in other European Countries (also in terms of secondary education, we report a – not so substantial – gap with the rest of Europe37); furthermore,
35 See Ciccarelli A. (2008), Competitività del Sistema Italia e deficit di
innova-zione, Aracne editrice, Rome, 2008, and Bugamelli M., Cannari L., Lotti F., Magri S.
(2014), Il gap innovativo del sistema produttivo italiano: ritardi e possibili rimedi, in Arrighetti A., Ninni A. (eds), La trasformazione ‘silenziosa’, Collana di Economia Industriale e Applicata, University of Parma.
36 Bugamelli M. et al (2014), op. cit., p. 214.
the typology of degrees obtained is definitely biased towards humanities, with a lower incidence of the so-called hard scien-ces (that are often at the basis of innovation proscien-cesses). It is clear how basic knowledge and the education level can influen-ce business innovative activity: actually, more competent and skilled workers are those who understand better current tech-nologies so as to suggest (formal or informal) innovations wi-thin businesses; after all, they will be able to seize technological opportunities offered by markets on the one hand; on the other hand, they will be more inclined to implement new products, processes or organisational models. Then, it should not be for-gotten the need for a lifelong learning of workforce, not to risk it becomes outdated, considered the rate of spread of innova-tions worldwide.
– Access to funding: access to funding has always been difficult for small-sized enterprises, since banks (particularly in Italy) are inclined to fund initiatives only against real securities38. This
restrains family businessmen, who will be less inclined to risk, for the above-said reasons, having to stake not only business but also family soundness. Furthermore, innovation is not su-ited to be financed through borrowing, preferring other for-ms of capital such as stock capital39. For this reason, innovative
activity, especially in the new technologies and in high-risk sec-tors, is better suited to be financed through innovative forms of Italy, compared to the mean value of about 81%; such performance is in line with the German one (77%) but is definitely lower than what happens in the United Kingdom, Finland, Sweden and France (where the percentage varies between 83% and 86%).
38 It is clear that the only assets held by a business (especially if it is young or
even newly built) wanting to “make innovation” are the quality of its human capital and of the idea it wants to implement. In both cases, they are not very attractive assets for credit institutions (that generally are much more inclined to finance the purchasing of “embedded” innovation – such as equipment, which can more easily become a security for a loan).
39 But this would mean to leave creditors a (more or less large) part of the
financing, such as venture capital40, which, however, are usually
poorly developed (and used) in our Country.
– Public sector: public contribution still seems inadequate, not so much from the quantitative point of view (we have underlined how R&D activities financed from public funds are in line with those of other Countries), as from the qualitative point of view: in fact, insufficient ability to connect research facilities (univer-sities, in particular) with the business world, and create, accor-dingly, those environmental conditions that foster innovative processes emerges. The collaboration between private busines-ses and public bodies is still poor, despite many improvements (consider, for example, recent legislation on the setting-up of academic spin-offs, which aims at transferring research to busi-ness facilities 41).
We may add to all this that unusual sense of “apathy” that se-ems to hit our entrepreneurs, who consider innovative activities as
40 Venture capital is the contribution of risk capitals provided by investors to
finance business start-up or growth in sectors that are deemed to have high deve-lopment potential. Usually, venture capital operations happen in those sectors that are regarded as too much risky for standard capital or bank loan markets. The in-vestors (often investment funds) gain in exchange a share of the capital of the busi-ness they have invested in, and sometimes support the development phase through direct investments in terms of business consultancy or management choice. Venture capital investments in Italy equal 0.015%, that is, about one quarter of what is on average invested in Europe (0.062%); such percentage is lower than those noticed in Germany (0.041%), France (0.081%), Denmark (0.097%) and the United Kingdom (0.119%), and is higher only than that of some eastern Europe Countries.
41 Moreover, among public sector intervention areas many authors highlight
also the low weight of defence industry (compared to what happens in other Coun-tries, such as United States, France, United Kingdom), which has always repre-sented a drive to create innovations for the economic system as a whole (F. Onida (2004), Se il piccolo non cresce. Piccole e medie imprese in affanno, Il Mulino, Bolo-gna, p. 156): one should bear in mind such innovations as the Internet, microchips, GPSs, cell phones, at least initially based on military applications (see Alesina A., Giavazzi F. (2008), Goodbye Europa. Cronache di un declino economico e politico, BUR, Milan, p. 105).
a pure cost, and not as an investment in order to create growth op-portunities, and who, often, especially if not driven by external sti-muli, prefer to stay on the subsistence level, rather than seek ways to proceed at a brisk pace42.
4. Abruzzo’s SMEs: contextualisation in an economic and pro-ductive framework
Within the theoretical framework just outlined at national level, if we focus on the Abruzzo region the general considerations may be applied to regional context, in spite of the differences and pecu-liarities that regional dynamics endorse.
As it is well known, the Abruzzo region is highly characterised by small and medium sized enterprises (the average size of local units is only 3.2 employees), operating, particularly, in traditional / mature areas of specialisation.
Small business size, however, is not always a synonym of ef-ficiency, as it could prove to be, in the long run, almost a barrier to the development of the economy as a whole43. The problem we
refer to mainly deals with the low capacity of such types of busi-nesses to take a leadership role within national and non-national markets. In practice, such businesses, often run by the owner or a family (the incidence of capital firms in Abruzzo is about 15%),
42 Besides, it is no coincidence that those businesses that become international
are more innovative/competitive (see ch.1): on the one hand, they become inter-national because they represent the “liveliest” environments; on the other hand, just as a result of internationalization, a process of continuous performance im-provement is triggered, since they need to compete with experienced competitors. On the contrary, those sectors more protected by foreign competition show a less increasing productivity, just because there is no stimulus to improve.
43 On such issues, it is possible to look at extensive literature; among others,
we can cite Onida F., Se il piccolo non cresce. Piccole e medie imprese in affanno, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2004; Signorini L. F:, Visco I. (2008), L’economia italiana, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2002; Ciccarelli A., Competitività del Sistema Italia e deficit di
very often cannot express their strong productive potential, able to coagulate so intense entrepreneurial forces that they can stand out in the production landscape; in practice, a too fragmented lo-cal business context, in some cases, is incompatible with the need to create productive plants able to drag the entire local economic structure, and this fact derives directly from excessive under-sizing and under-capitalisation of the businesses themselves.
One of the main difficulties of SMEs is the lack of ability to have affordable strategies in the short term, in line with the rapid evolution of the economy of the markets where businesses operate. Basically, small business, family-run or with few staff, are usually managed by assessing the market behaviours on the basis of perso-nal experiences of operators, with criteria that are significantly away from the managerial spirit that drives the choices within large enter-prises. For that matter, problems of cost, do not allow this type of businesses to internalise a number of functions related to the plan-ning, research and development, market analysis, etc.; in short, there is a lack of “study” capability which can provide the tools needed to understand with some precision (and, above all, in a timely manner) the future trend of markets where businesses operate, generating di-seconomies caused by the delay of certain decisions.
Of course, this does not mean that Abruzzo is a necessarily “underdeveloped” region: it can boast a good production structu-re (especially when compastructu-red to other structu-regions of the South), with businesses that, even in the more traditional sectors, are well con-nected and organised in the area (often to form a sort of “widespre-ad” district) and even with some internationally-oriented busines-ses (the engineering in the Sangro district, the robotics in Carsoli, the electronics and chemical districts in L’Aquila, the chemical and glass districts in Vasto). Unfortunately, in some cases, some of these businesses are marking time to competitors, because of the difficul-ties in competing in the markets (and one of its main reasons is the low level of innovation within businesses).
However, the fact remains that the reduced average firm size af-fects also significantly the possibility of access to the “technology” and so-called “advanced” services (the so-called KIS - Knowledge
Intensive Service). For the reasons explained above, especially re-lated to the internalisation of costs of certain business functions, SMEs hardly manage to have the necessary resources to investigate and develop technological innovation (both product and process innovation) within a business. Therefore, it would be essential the provision of a range of advanced services to enable smaller firms to be always up-to-date on new technique developments; above all, one of the main directions of action seems to be to improve (if not, in some cases, to activate) the links between firms and research cen-tres, universities, scientific and technological poles, which would allow a significant rapprochement between the places of “disco-very” and those where innovation should be used.
4.1. Innovation and business competitiveness: the Abruzzo Region within the Adriatic and Ionian Macro-Region
Every two years the EU delivers a report entitled RIS - Regio-nal Innovation Scoreboard, in which, through the use of a set of statistical indicators on innovative activity and R&D, it evaluates, precisely, the ability to “make innovation” of the relevant territo-ries. The performance of Abruzzo, and, in general, of all the NUTS 2 areas of the Adriatic and Ionian Macro-region, is certainly not exciting: almost all these regions fall within the so-called group of “Moderate Innovator”, except for Emilia Romagna and Friuli Venezia Giulia (“Innovation followers”) and, in the opposite di-rection, Croatia (“Modest Innovator” 44).
The Abruzzo region, which is affected - as anyway Italy as a whole - by a significant gap in terms of innovation capacity com-pared to the most advanced areas of Central and Northern Europe, however, is not in such precarious conditions (at least in comparati-ve terms with other central and southern Italian areas) as we might
44 The ranking resulting from the analysis divides the regions into 4 groups,
in descending order of “innovative capacity”: Innovation Leaders, Innovation fol-lowers, Moderate Innovator and Modest Innovator; for a thorough analysis, see European Commission, Regional Innovation Scoreboard 2014, 2014.
imagine at first45: as it is highlighted in a study recently released by
E-Data (a spin-off of the University of Teramo46), the Abruzzo
Re-gion is one of the first Italian reRe-gions in relation to expenditure on innovation, foreign subsidiary companies, exports in medium-high technology sectors and information sharing (with consumers and / or suppliers) on the management of the distribution chain. Things, however, seem to go less well with regard to expenditure on rese-arch and development and intellectual property rights (inventions, designs, trademarks, patents).
The latter does not appear an unimportant aspect: it is that “in-novation” deriving from an activity of “structured search” that, in production, capital and size conditions mentioned previously, ap-pears to be extremely difficult to implement within the production (or service) cycle. Yet, it is precisely this kind of innovation that today allows the best performing companies to impose their pro-ducts/services on the market, materializing in terms of competitive edge and enabling a consistent and continuous growth that ranks the company at the top of domestic and international markets47.
Essentially, and with specific reference to the role of the pro-ductive context within the regional innovation system, it is possible to find that its strategic nature is, to date, strongly threatened by
45 In this phase it is already felt the need to provide local actors – such as
busi-nesses, institutions, citizens – with an easily accessible database, that enable them to get information, know, and consequently make the rightest decisions in a precise, complete and impartial way (even with the help of “expert consultants” who guide in this process).
46 E-DATA, Innovazione e nuova imprenditorialità in Abruzzo, E-Data
Fla-sh, 1.2015 (available on the website: www.edatasrl.it)
47 About the strategic importance of innovative activities on economic growth
and public and European intervention policies see, just to cite some of the latest studies, Kourtit, K., Nijkamp, P., Stough, R. (eds), Drivers of Innovation,
Entre-preneurship and Regional Dynamics, Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 2011; Soete, L., Re-gions and innovation policies: the way forward, in ReRe-gions and Innovation Policy,
OECD Reviews of Regional Innovation, OECD Publishing, 2011; McCann, P., Ortega-Argilés, R., Smart Specialization, Regional Growth and Applications to
the presence of: i) a large number of SMEs, which, although orien-ted towards innovation, do not appear able to manage it and fail (for cultural and cost reasons) to support the research and develop-ment expenditure needed to impledevelop-ment “radical” innovations in a business; ii) a weak inclination of businesses to work together or within public-private partnerships on projects for developing and sharing knowledge; iii) a limited ability to absorb new knowledge, mainly due to the scarcity of qualified human capital in businesses, especially with reference to researchers and scientifically and tech-nologically skilled workers; iv) a significant difficulty in access to funding sources for research and innovation through means repla-cing the banking system and public support.
4.2. The role of Institutions and academic spin-offs
It is clear how local businesses find it difficult to internalise certain strategic functions (due to organisation, skills, costs, labour supplying and whatever) that fail to be borne (and backed) within SMEs. Therefo-re, it is ever more necessary to develop a sector, such as that of business services, able to provide not only and not so much traditional instru-ments (e.g. accounting, legal aid), with a low value added for businesses exploiting them, but also, and foremost, highly-innovative services and instruments, giving production the possibility to significantly improve products supplied, cost structure, business organisation.
In this sense, a key role may be played by the public sector (fir-stly, the Region in Abruzzo), which will have to prove to be able to coagulate all the institutions (local authorities, universities, cham-bers of commerce, business networks, etc.) in order to set up a sup-port structure for citizens and enterprises which will be responsible for: studying and analysing local structure and national and interna-tional markets; proposing basic and applied research projects; tur-ning such research activity into innovation; plantur-ning medium and long term (innovative) strategies, sharing them with trade unions and local businesses. Such activity should aim at building a “soft in-frastructure” available to businesses with the purpose of making up for possible structural lacks of the local production system.
In this perspective, a fundamental role could be performed by academic spin-offs, which structurally represent the link between (university) research and production settings, and often have not only economic but also social objective, just because they are lin-ked as “cognates” with university. The proponents of such project, however, are also directly involved in such institutional/entrepre-neurial activity, since they run two academic spin-offs:
– E-DATA S.r.l. – Spin-Off of the University of Teramo, dealing with economic and statistical research, database building and information management systems;
– Smart Society S.r.l. – Spin-Off of the University of Chieti-Pe-scara, supplying innovative tools for businesses, smart cities and citizens, in the perspective of improving their performan-ces, wellbeing and quality of life.
In addition to these two cases, Abruzzo’s Universities have im-plemented some spin-offs and start-ups to give rise to structures able to make the most of know-how and make it available for en-terprises, families and institutions.
Over the last five years, three Abruzzo’s Universities have set up about 28 spin-offs, spread in the four provinces as follows: six in the province of Pescara, five in the province Chieti, four in the province of Teramo and thirteen in the province of L’Aquila (regar-ding the University of L’Aquila, in fact, even if it has 13 spin-offs on paper, it has to be remembered that BLU TECNOLOGIE s.r.l. and NANO-CAT s.r.l. have given up their business, therefore we can consider only 11 operating spin-offs).
On the whole, the Abruzzo Region can boast only ten or so structures interacting with technology transfer.
5. Innovation policies and public funds
In historical times when public institutions and private busi-nesses are short of money because of the ongoing economic crisis, calling for further efforts to trigger a proper investment chain could
