Participants at this National Interest event observed that economic and demographic trends in advanced economies point to an increasingly strategic role being played by research and innovation in the pursuit of growth and improved standards of living. This role was seen as very evident in the life sciences field, the focus of a study on “Italy’s competitiveness in a new scientific research scenario” conducted by Farmindustria and Fondazione CERM for Aspen Institute Italia.
It was noted that trends in international research bear witness to the emergence of a network innovation model, within which the key to success is – and will increasingly become – the existence of research teams (including relatively small and focused ones) employing a multidisciplinary approach marked by new technological complementarities, such as those operating in the life sciences sector with ICT firms, which are capitalizing on big data and helping to advance precision medicine.
This scenario could – it was suggested – see Italy emerge as a more competitive player than in the past. An analysis of indicators such as numbers of patents, scientific publications, and citations makes apparent Italy’s high standing in the field of research, with generally satisfactory placings in league tables for productivity whilst ranking among the global leaders in the area of medical research.
It was emphasized that Italy has also succeeded in positioning itself as a country at the vanguard of numerous innovations, and, in recent years, as an international hub for pharmaceutical production and research. This is a very important phenomenon since, as shown in a study by CERM, the knowledge generated in the biopharmaceutical sector spills over to the entire national research system – both via basic research and clinical research efforts.
Acknowledgement was made of the fact that, in recent years, new and more favorable policies have been rolled out in Italy for research and innovation, with significant incentives (including tax credits, the patent box tax relief scheme, the Industry 4.0 National Plan, and hyper- and super-depreciation rates), strategic measures such as strong support for locating the European Medicines Agency headquarters in Italy and the commitment shown towards the Human Technopole research campus, as well as a new approach to the health sector that has boosted Italy’s attractiveness for investment. It was suggested that this is due to the country’s national health service playing a strategic role in the new research scenario, and that this could prove a comparative advantage for Italy over other countries
There was a perceived need to shore up this step change – which has succeeded in methodically activating the various levers for growth in research – by providing businesses with a stable and credibly sustained outlook, and through additional resources and increased incentives (insofar as public finances allow). Indeed, in the life sciences sector, health policies serve also as industrial policies, with the growth witnessed thus stemming from a holistic approach to policy.
It was felt that the challenges that Italy’s research sphere must face in order to stay competitive arise, on the one hand, from the spread of digital technologies that enable an increasingly higher-level “virtualization” of collaborative models and, on the other, from convergence between scientific and technological trajectories formerly considered far-removed from each other. The upshot is that, today, the most promising initiatives are those at the crossroads between the biomedical, biopharmaceutical, ICT, and new materials fields.
In conclusion, the participants stressed that it is against backdrop that endeavors must be made to ensure that Italy’s research system remains at the heart of the international network. For this to be accomplished, it is necessary to take into account that the standard of local operating conditions in general and of the relevant institutional context make a huge difference. Based on merit, a specialized network of centers of excellence needs to be discerned that is also receptive to ideas from abroad. Also key will be the ability to adopt innovative organizational models, to establish multidisciplinary laboratories, and to bring study syllabuses up-to-speed, as will a push towards internationalization, so as to facilitate the circulation of ideas and talent and a gearing-up of efforts on the technology transfer front, thereby helping to transform ideas into concrete business opportunities.