“Today, governing an innovation ecosystem such as a science park means not just offering spaces or services, but carefully studying the needs of companies and the potential of those who bring solutions, and honing the ability to combine them in a targeted manner. The challenge is to generate a positive impact on the production and industrial system, by making companies, universities, start-ups and research centres work together while respecting the peculiarities and diversity of each innovation player’. This is the vision of Salvatore Majorana, director of Kilometro Rosso, one of Europe’s leading innovation districts strategically located in Bergamo, on the A4 axis between Milan and Venice.
Founded in 2009 and developed on a private initiative, today the campus is home to 85 companies, laboratories and research centres with a total of three thousand employees and researchers. In the end, it is still the territory – or as it was once called, the district – that makes the difference and rises in relevance and awareness. So even in dematerialised times, it is places that attract us like magnets.
In 77 countries 142 thousand innovative enterprises
Since a few months Majorana is also the new president of Iasp, International Association of Science Parks and Areas of Innovation. This is the world’s largest network of science and technology parks, innovation areas, technology transfer hubs and innovation districts worldwide. Almost 400 members representing 142,000 innovative companies in 77 countries worldwide. A machine of exchange and acceleration that transforms science parks into bridges between universities, enterprise and capital that accredit themselves as true orchestrators of ecosystems. “In Italy, from north to south, experiences have multiplied over the years, an indication of the vitality of a world of innovation that desires to emerge.
Majorana: “Designing the growth of ecosystems”
There are many worldwide examples to be taught from: Zhongguancun Science Park in Beijing, High Tech Campus in Eindhoven, Málaga TechPark in Spain,’ says Majorana. But for this lifelong engineer dedicated to designing the future – in the previous he was additionally director of know-how switch at the Italian Institute of Technology – the divergences between the Italian mannequin and that of nations equivalent to China or South Korea are apparent. “The key is the ability to design and plan the growth of ecosystems. In Italy and Europe, long-term programmes systematically exclude innovation from the agenda. By contrast, in China, the US, South Korea and emerging economies such as Turkey, Brazil and India, governments support growth plans focused on skills and exchanges between universities, industry and finance’.
Untapped potential
The winning formula lies in the potential that must also be understood by the political and ruling classes. “In these international locations, even these which are geographically very distant from Italy, science parks are strategic devices which have remodeled historical past: China is a number one industrial energy, Turkey is tumultuously advancing, the USA is strengthening its supremacy. In Europe, regardless of many years of proof on their strategic nature, measures to reinforce them are missing,’ Majorana factors out. From these constructions which are so versatile and permeable to co-design and co-creation will come up the companies that may design the way forward for cities, companies, mobility, and our every day lives. “From right here will cross know-how switch and the creation of recent enterprises, which must turn into cornerstones of the nation’s industrial coverage. There are completely different fashions for doing this. We are already energetic in basic enterprise capital, but in addition in enterprise shopper, which is efficacious in bringing giant firms nearer to new enterprises,’ says Majorana.