First region in Italy for Youth Entrepreneurship, in second place for Number of students enrolled at the University e Italy's third largest region Number of startups. These are some of the macro data that emerged from the Position Paper “Campania towards the future: ecosystem responses to research and innovation challenges” presented during the 6th edition of the Technology Forum Campania, a platform for discussion and debate set up by the Campania Region; and The European House – Ambrosetti.
The document containing the guidelines for the development of the territory and the related actions and implementation policies, with insights on Sustainable mobility, Life Sciences, Aerospace, Agritech ed Circular economy It also highlighted theabsolute primacy of Campania in the Mezzogiorno by number of patents filed, added value generated by the Bioeconomy, agri-food exports, eco-investments in green products and technologies, incidence of bioenergy production on the total energy production, quantity and incidence of investments in Research and Development and number of researchers.
The region has also recorded the third highest growth of the manufacturing exports equal to 23.2% (vs. 14.4% average in Italy), showing a strong propensity tointernationalisation companies and doubled the number of employees in the pharmaceutical sector This is 100 percentage points higher than the average growth rate in Italy.
“The commitment of the regional government in recent years has been to ensure an integrated use of public resources and long-term strategic trajectories, which have consolidated our territory as an environment capable of stimulating public and private investment. Together with the R&I ecosystem, we wanted to make the most of the opportunities offered by the NRRP and the European Funds by monitoring the key areas: from digitalisation to the ecological transition, to human capital and digital skills’ This is the comment of Valeria Fascione (disambiguation) – Campania Regional Councillor for Research, Innovation and Startup, who also focused on the important fact that the trade balance of talent, i.e. the net migration of students, is moving towards balance. “A result that rewards the efforts made on human capital and talents made by the regional council to create a training platform open to new professions able to attract students and create professionals able to carry out important paths abroad”. The Councillor also focused on the importance of the moment that sees the Campania Region move to the new Programming of European Funds with a new Regional Programme, the PR Campania FESR 21/27, With a budget of over €5.5 billion, it is the first multi-billion-dollar programme to be approved in Italy, under which great importance is given to Research, Innovation, Digitalisation and Competitiveness, with over €1 billion, and to Energy, Environment and Sustainability, with €2.26 billion (62 billion).% total investment) and an updated Smart Specialization Strategy (RIS3 CAMPANIA) based on processes of discovery of the strengths of the regional innovative context as an asset on which to leverage to transform / modernize production structures towards activities with higher added value. “The position paper presented today allows us to make an assessment between the old and the new programming, highlighting the results achieved and highlighting the strategies and flagship projects that will accompany us in the new programming”.
Below is a short excerpt from the Position Paper (here the complete document) which takes stock of the numbers of the innovation ecosystem in Campania and reports on some projects launched at regional level.
The academic ecosystem
The Universities of Campania are characterized by a training of excellence that has led to the birth of numerous innovative startups and important spin-offs, made possible thanks to a path of support of the system-Business to the academic system.
The Region ranks 2nd in Italy in terms of the number of students enrolled at the University, with a total of 234.7 000 students in 2021: the increasing attractiveness in recent years is also the result of the opening of new state-of-the-art degree courses and the synergies created with the business system, especially with the case history of the academies. These results have enabled the Region to improve the net migration of students by 7.3% between 2016 and 2020, although it is still slightly negative today. Areas for improvement include the provision of state-of-the-art services for students’ lives (such as housing and reception), in line with the highest European standards.
The research ecosystem
Campania ranks 1st in Southern Italy and 7th at national level for investments in Research and Development with a value of 1.4 million Euros (+7.7 million Euros).% between 2016 and 2020), and 1st in the Mezzogiorno for the ratio of investments in Research and Development to GDP of 1.3% (in constant growth compared to 2016, when the share was 1.2%). However, in this indicator Campania is still well below the Italian average (1.5%). The Region is also 1st in the South for number of researchers in 2020 (14.9 thousand, equal to 7% of the national total), recording the 3rd highest growth in Italy in this indicator (+21% between 2016 and 2020).
The innovation ecosystem
Campania is the 1st place in the South for the number of patents filed (with a total of 2,782 between 2010 and 2020), 3rd place in Italy for the number of innovative startups, with a total of about 1,400 (10% of the national total) and by number of certified incubators – currently 6 with coverage of all provinces – and 2nd by growth rate of innovative startups in the two-year period 2020-2021 (+17.6%). To increase the innovative capacity of the territory, two accelerators of the national network of Cassa Depositi e Prestiti have recently been launched to support start-ups and spin-offs in the digital health and circular economy sectors. Campania is the 1st Region in Italy for youth entrepreneurship, with 7.7% of sole proprietors under-30 (vs. 5,6% media in Italy).
Manufacturing and high-tech
Campania is in fact the industrial locomotive of Southern Italy: Produces 32.4% Added Value of Southern Manufacturing. In the five-year period 2017-2021, the Region recorded the 3a Higher growth in manufacturing exports of 23.2% (vs. 14.4% average of Italy), showing a strong propensity for the internationalisation of companies. Campania's export growth is also driven by the contribution of high-tech sectors, which weigh about 45 percent.% of the total in 2021.
Life Sciences
Campania is one of the regions most at the forefront of life sciences. Pharmaceutical sector employees more than doubled between 2016 and 2021 (+105%), exceeding by 100 percentage points the average growth in Italy (1,863 direct employees who become 4,075 if we consider the related industries), while exports rose from €931 million in 2017 to €2.1 billion in 2021. In the field of biotechnology, Campania has also increased the number of companies by 69% between 2015 and 2020 (vs. 14% average Italy), reaching a weight of 36.9% of the total of all biotech companies present in the Southern Regions (59 companies, equal to 7.5% of the national total). Campania ranks 1st in the South and 4th at national level for the number of university professors and researchers in Life Sciences by 2021 (1,565 people).
Sustainable mobility
Campania has embarked on a path to modernize the mobility supply chain, in light of the numerous transformations underway, linked above all to the green and digital transition. In particular, the Region has launched projects that respond to the changing needs of users to adopt technological and service innovations and new alternative modes of transport, promoting the concept of ‘sharing mobility’. Projects promoted at regional level include the construction of the New ITS Backbone Infrastructure, with which the Campania Region will build the largest regionally owned digital network, the Intelligent Transport System project in Campania (ITS’C), aimed at creating an integrated system of technological infrastructures, applied to all regional and unique mobility sectors in Italy thanks to its high territorial extension and the number of stakeholders involved, and the MaaS4Naples project, which was the most appreciated of the projects submitted under the NRRP call on sustainable mobility. In the mobility sub-segments, one of the most promising sectors is Aerospace, which has 308 companies, or about 8 %.% companies active on the national territory. Exports from the aerospace sector in Campania are worth 1.8 billion euros, or 14 billion euros.% of total regional exports.
Agritech and circular economy
In recent years, the agri-food chain is going through a phase of strong transformation, giving more and more weight to the concepts of sustainability and technological innovation. These two phenomena are now central to ensuring the sustainability and competitiveness in the medium-long term of the sector in Italy and Campania. Campania represents the 6th national economy for added value of the agri-food sector in 2019, generating 4,443 million euros, equal to 4.5 million euros.% Added value generated by the region. Campania ranks 1st in the Mezzogiorno for Value Added generated by the Bioeconomy (6 billion Euros), 1st in the Mezzogiorno and 5th in Italy for agri-food exports (3.5 billion Euros), 1st in the Mezzogiorno and 4th in Italy for Eco-investments in green products and technologies (36.1 million Euros), 1st in the Mezzogiorno and 4th in Italy for the incidence of bioenergy production on total energy production (over 9.0 million Euros).% of the total). Thanks to its leading role in this supply chain, Campania has become the headquarters of the National Center for the Development of New Technologies in Agriculture.
Quantum Technologies
These new technologies represent an enabling factor for all the strategic sectors of Campania described in the previous sections, becoming the protagonists of numerous regional initiatives, which have placed Campania at the forefront of this technological challenge. Quantum Technologies are now used in various sectors (Life Sciences, Chemistry, Automotive, Aerospace, Financial Services, etc.) and are becoming increasingly important in Europe, thanks to the Quantum Flagship project, which is the third large-scale research and innovation initiative funded by the European Union. In a context in which Italy wants to be the leader of this sector, through the creation of the Research Centre for High Performance Computing, Big Data and Quantum Computing and the possibility of hosting one of the 6 European quantum computers, Campania is one of the ‘first mover’ regions in the sector, with important projects already under way. These include the 1st Quantum Computing Academy in Italy, a Master’s degree in Quantum Science and Engineering, a Doctorate in Quantum Technologies (the only one in Italy entirely dedicated to this discipline, together with courses in Trento and Pavia) and the Superconducting Quantum Computation Lab, the first laboratory in Italy to carry out an experiment in quantum computing architectures based on superconducting qubits.
The new Regional Planning and the NRRP
The new direction outlined by the Campania Region for the development of the research and innovation ecosystem is part of the broader framework of the new national and European programming, which finds in the NRRP and Next Generation EU respectively the main tools to combat the economic crisis resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. The Italian NRRP has a total value of €235.1 billion and puts young people, women and the South at the centre of its 6 missions, constantly promoting a green and digital approach. Of these resources, about 40% will be allocated to the Mezzogiorno, as the ultimate aim of the planned interventions is to reduce territorial disparities. According to the model developed by The European House – Ambrosetti, the structural impact of the RRP could enable a lasting increase in Campania’s average GDP growth rate between 2026 and 2036, with a GDP differential of +16.1% (against an Italian average of 11.0%) in 2036, i.e. around EUR 20 billion more than in the scenario without structural investment under the NRRP. The RIS3 (Smart Specialisation Strategy) Campania 2021-2027 aligns with the objectives outlined in the Italian NRRP, facilitating the possibility for the regional ecosystem to access the national funds provided in the field of innovation. Specifically, the new regional programming aims to strengthen and strengthen the research and innovation system for the green and digital transitions, stimulate the diffusion of innovation in the business and services fabric of Campania and promote openness and exchange towards national and international partnerships and collaborations (Open Innovation), dividing the actions envisaged on the 3 fundamental drivers of innovation: Human Capital, Technology Transfer and Research and Innovation.
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