The Lombardia experience of Regional Foresight

1
The Lombardia experience of Regional Foresight
2
Lombardia

• Socio-economic features
• Lombardia has
• Approximately 9 million inhabitants, (15.6 of
  the nation population), with a demographic
  profile that has 24 of the population under the
  age of 25 and 17. 4 over 65.
• Unemployment rate 3.8 (2002) compared to the
  national one of 9.5.
• Employment rate 51,1 (female employment rate
  39,9 and male employment rate 63)
• Gross Domestic Product 247,7 billion Euro
  (2001)
• Agriculture makes up 1,8 of the GDP, Industry
  40, Service 58,2
• Approximately 740,000 firms.
• The highest number of Universities and the
  highest expenditure in scientific research in
  Italy
• The total RD spending in the region as of GDP
  1,17, of which public sector 0,31, Government
  0,12, University 0,19 and private sector 0,86.

3
Problem and Objectives

• Driving problem
• In which technology areas the manufacturing
  industry of Lombardia could become very
  competitive (excellent) at international scale?
• The identification of these areas was the main
  objective of the foresight exercise.

4

• Expected outputs
• The assessment of the main families of emerging
  technologies (Biotechnologies, Advanced
  materials, ICTs, Nanotechnologies, Energy
  technologies) in terms of their potential impact
  on the competitiveness of the manufacturing
  industry of Lombardia
• Expected impacts
• To provide the informative basis on which an
  Action Plan should be designed with the aim of
  allocating public resources to RD and of
  involving the relevant scientific and industrial
  actors in cooperative networks.

5
The Foresight Exercise

• A critical technology method criticality of
  a technology was evaluated in terms of its
  Attractiveness for the future competitiveness of
  Lombardia manufacturing industry and of the
  Feasibility of its development (from research to
  industrial exploitation) by means of the RD and
  industrial resources and capabilities of
  Lombardia.
• A set of qualitative and quantitative indicators
  was derived from the notions of Attractiveness
  and Feasibility
• A panel of approximately 70 experts from the
  public research sector and from industrial firms
  evaluated the indicators.
• The information gathered from the experts was
  elaborated both in qualitative and quantitative
  terms, so providing a comprehensive view to the
  Attractiveness and Feasibility of a technology.

6
Outputs and their Impacts

• Outputs
• A Report, summarizing the main findings of the
  prospective analysis
• A set of recommendations regarding the
  criticality of the technologies.
• A commitment of the main research and industrial
  actors, involved in the foresight process, to
  cooperate in the development of the critical
  technologies.

7

• Outputs/Expectations
• The achieved outputs were well in line with the
  expected outcomes, set of the beginning at the
  exercise.
• Impacts of the outputs
• The Report proposed the following hierarchy of
  the technology areas Advanced materials (most
  relevant) ICTs, Biotechnologies, Energy
  technologies, Nanotechnologies.
• The Regional Government and the National one
  agreed to combine financial resources to support
  RD projects in a few technology families of
  these areas Biotechnologies, ICT, Advanced
  Materials.

8
On-going RDTI policy

• Political framework
• The Regional Government is now following a
  different approach to RDTI policy, focused on the
  demand side.
• A study is on-going with the aim of identifying a
  few large sistemyc RD projects that can
  enhance the performance and the quality of the
  services provided by the Regional Administration
  in these areas Healthcare, Mobility,
  Environment, Cultural Heritage.