ENEA Innovation Atlas presented to Confindustria Lombardia and Assolombarda

Milan, 8 October 2015 - The first national roadshow on Technological Innovation for Competitiveness kicked off today in Milan. Promoted by Confindustria Lombardia and ENEA, in collaboration with the Lombardy Region, the initiative follows US models designed to facilitate the meeting of industrial demand and public research supply. Attendees included Confindustria Lombardia President Alberto Ribolla, Assolombarda Vice President Pietro Guindani, ENEA Commissioner Federico Testa, and the Deputy Director General for "Productive Activities, Research and Innovation" of the Lombardy Region, Armando De Crinito.

The audience of businesses, particularly SMEs, were presented with technologies relating to three of the nine Lombardy clusters, namely intelligent factories, green chemistry, and energy, as well as ongoing research projects eligible for 50% tax credits. These technologies are compiled in the ENEA Innovation Atlas, a database containing over 500 innovative technologies, products, and advanced services from the Agency, available at www.enea.it. Each technology is presented in a fact sheet, including its Technology Readiness Level (TRL) as defined by the European Commission for the Horizon 2020 programme. The fact sheets are continuously updated and can be searched by national cluster, NACE code, or free text. The Atlas covers around twenty sectors, from energy to agri-food, renewable sources to energy efficiency services, biomass to traceability, sensors to lasers, and new materials to technologies for recovering valuable materials from computers.

“At ENEA, we are firmly convinced of the great added value of innovation for competing in national and international markets, as highlighted by the study on SMEs released yesterday by the Ministry of Economic Development,” notes ENEA Commissioner Federico Testa. “Innovating to be competitive in an increasingly globalised market is the goal of this first roadshow, which we will replicate in other parts of the country to facilitate access for trade associations and individual businesses to advanced services and products developed by our research.”

“ENEA’s initiative has the merit of closely connecting the world of research and companies in a competitive way. Building a system and joining forces by creating synergies between companies, clusters, and research centres is increasingly an essential condition for innovating and competing,” emphasises Confindustria Lombardia President Alberto Ribolla. “Confindustria Lombardia can only view the public-private relationship as an opportunity, within a context of sharing
strategic lines and objectives with public institutions and stakeholders, while always respecting our respective roles.”

“Research and innovation,” comments Lombardy Region Councillor for Productive Activities, Research and Innovation Mario Melazzini, “represent strategic priorities for the Lombardy Region. Initiatives like this roadshow are very important because they help consolidate a virtuous and synergistic relationship between the economic world and the world of universities and research, creating a supply chain that also includes institutions and the financial sector. All this makes the prospect of translating ideas into community well-being and economic value a reality. In this context, clusters play a fundamental role as they represent the primary tool for ensuring that the assets of each individual subject can be shared, with the ultimate goal of everyone’s well-being.”

The Innovation for Business Competitiveness roadshow was created as part of ENEA’s new activities to strengthen technology transfer capabilities for the benefit of businesses, promoted by the Agency’s “Industry and Business Associations” Service. Specialising in the dissemination of skills, instrumental resources, products, and services for competitiveness, the ENEA service was established as part of the operational reorganisation launched on 1 July.
The new organisational structure is based on three departments: “Fusion and Nuclear Safety Technologies”, “Energy Technologies”, and “Sustainability of Productive and Territorial Systems”. There is also the Energy Efficiency Technical Unit, which acts as the National Agency for Energy Efficiency, the Antarctica Technical Unit, the Radiation Protection Institute, the White Certificates Unit, and the Studies and Strategies Unit.

Upcoming stages of the national roadshow on Technological Innovation for Competitiveness include Rome, Ancona, Naples, Bologna, Varese, Treviso, and Verona, with meetings organised in direct collaboration with Confindustria’s “Education and Innovation” area.

Attachments

• Roadshow Atlas Milan Press Release (2).pdf