Piemonte and its capital, Torino, have a great innovation heritage. If we don’t go too far back in time, we can say it exists “from when Italy exists”, and, in fact, the country’s unification process started in Piemonte, with Torino Italy’s first capital. Science and research form part of Piemonte’s DNA: from Erasmus to Norberto Bobbio, from Lagrange to Nietzsche, over the centuries many renowned thinkers, scientists, writers and artists believed Piemonte the ideal place for reflection and scientific elaboration.

Here, science and technology are strictly linked: Piemonte is an old industrial region still characterized by a rich fabric of technical competences and innovation-oriented activities.

Some of the most important national industries were born in Piemonte and have conquered increasing shares of international markets. Fiat, the first Italian automotive group, started its activities here at the end of the 19th century. Italy’s first information technology area developed under the leadership of Adriano Olivetti and Italy’s first electronic computer was also produced near Ivrea, close to Torino. From there, the first industrial robots were sold to US companies in the early 1970s. The first Italian radio and television programs were also broadcast from Torino, and the region arose as the birthplace of the Italian industrial cinema.

Nowadays, some of the world’s most renowned car stylists work in Piemonte, such as Giugiaro and Pininfarina: their names are the most evident manifestation of a tradition that has been able to build up a unique taste that contributes to create the myth of “Italian style” in every day life, from jewellery to household items, from furniture to textiles.

In the last decades, Piemonte (traditionally the Italian center of the automotive industry) has diversified its own economic structure, directing itself more and more toward sectors tied to the economy of knowledge and to the development of a computer society. We are focusing on R&D activities and investing in strategic sectors: automotive, robotics, ICT, life sciences, design, energy, environmental technologies, aerospace, logistics, pharmaceutics and healthcare.

The strong industrial vocation of the region remains the rich soil from which innovation keeps springing up and growing.

An attractive place
With France on its western border and Switzerland on its northern one, Piemonte is naturally endowed with a strategic position in Europe and in the Mediterranean area, right at the crossroads of the main routes between the north and south, east and west. More than four million people live in Piemonte. GDP is about Euro 109 billion, accounting for 8.4% of Italy’s GDP. Thanks to its 1,000 km. of motorways, 2,000 km. of railways, its closeness to the Ligurian Sea and two international airports, Piemonte is an easily accessible place, ready to face up to the European market and to increase as well its attractiveness with respect to world investments and fluctuations. The airport at Torino Caselle has, today, reached higher international standards and Piemonte’s intercontinental connection is also guaranteed by the airport of Malpensa (100 kilometers northeast of Torino), which is southern Europe’s main air “hub”.

Piemonte invests 1.8% of its GDP in innovation, much more than the Italian average (1.1%), in line with the most highly developed areas in Europe and the business enterprise sector investment in R&D constitutes almost 80% of total R&D expenditure. It is one of the highest rates in Italy (where it is about 50%) and in Europe. Over 200 laboratories are active and more than 24,000 employees work in R&D. Moreover, the region ranks first in Italy for expenditure on innovation in the manufacturing sector. New technologies are developed with the backing of major companies, as well as small and medium-sized enterprises. Piemonte is also a forward-thinking financial and insurance center, accommodating the area of private banking with Unicredit; it is also the headquarters of Sanpaolo Imi--today, Intesa Sanpaolo after the recent merger of the two institutions. Several of the top venture capital and growth capital companies in Italy are operating here, as well as two major banking institutions--the Compagnia di San Paolo and the Fondazione CRT, both of which are strongly committed to supporting social, cultural and economic development in the region.

The 2006 Olympic Winter Games were hosted in Torino and its valleys. Apart from the public and media success, Piemonte is very proud to have, once again, driven innovation in the XX Winter Games: they were the first to be carbon neutral.

The education and research system
Our university system is rich and well-distributed: it is composed of three public universities and a private one.

The Università degli Studi di Torino can truly claim to be a kind of city-within-a-city, promoting culture and generating research, innovation, training and employment, with his 65,000 students, 4,000 academic and other staff, 4,000 post-graduate and post-doctoral students.

The Politecnico di Torino offers excellence in technology and acknowledges its historical context. The Politecnico has 26,000 students studying 120 courses: 39 bachelor’s degree courses; 35 master’s of science degree courses; 30 doctoral and 18 specialization courses. Over 890 lecturers and researchers work in our Politecnico.

The newly-born Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale “Amedeo Avogadro” aims at being competitive in both teaching and scientific research. With its seven faculties and 12 departments, it has reached three towns in Piemonte: Alessandria, Novara and Vercelli. There are 10,500 students and more than 350 teachers and researchers.

Last but not least, the University of Gastronomic Sciences was founded by Slow Food in conjunction with the regional authorities of Emilia Romagna and Piemonte. It is a unique academic institution dedicated to the study of food and its cultural value.

About 20,000 university students graduate every year in Piemonte. The high preparation of our education system is confirmed by the flourishing of private and public, national and international research centers operating here: CRIT-Technological Innovation and the Research Center of the national broadcasting company RAI, the Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica-INRIM, as well as the public-private ICT center Istituto Superiore Mario Boella. Alongside the centers born more than thirty years ago, such as TiLab of Telecom Italia and CRF--Fiat Research Center--many companies are choosing Piemonte as the best place to open a research center. Among them: Motorola, General Motors and Microsoft. Quality of research output is high: an average of 9.1% of publications in biotechnology, computer science and material science are published in top international journals.

Industry-academia cooperation
In Piemonte, companies can benefit from a strong cooperation between industry and academia. An integrated system of six science and technology parks, closely linked to the universities and the Politecnico, created with the mission of supporting research and innovation and fostering technology transfer, offer a strong network of competencies, aid contacts between firms and potential partners and seek out financial resources for the development of innovative projects with a high technology content.

Activities aimed at the “incubation” of innovative companies are carried out at the Politecnico di Torino and at the Università degli Studi di Torino as well, as in the regional industrial district Torino Wireless and in the science and technology parks, not to mention the support given to new businesses by institutional players.

The new “challenge” will be to increase the size and capitalization of innovative SMEs engaged in high-risk activities like R&D by contributing merchant bank funds, seed and venture capital. The first Italian Venture Capital Hub, just born in Torino, has accepted the challenge: it puts together eleven national and international venture capital funds. Furthermore, the Politecnico di Torino has doubled in size by constructing new infrastructures to create a suitable breeding ground for the development of research. Microsoft Innovation Center has recently opened in this area.

These are all signs of change, transformation and the creation of new opportunities, casting one more time Piemonte as a “laboratory” of innovation and development.

A new vision for research and innovation
Since research and innovation play such a strategic role in Piemonte, in 2005 the Regione Piemonte has created a new dedicated Department of “Universities, Research, Innovation, and Internationalization”.

It aims at turning to account the scientific, technological and industrial vocations of the region, supporting knowledge-creation and knowledge-transformation into innovative products and processes.

The Regione Piemonte has therefore created a system that coordinates and integrates public institutions, industry and academia also via some intermediary institutions, such as
Finpiemonte SpA and Enzima P.

The system has planned R&D priorities and strategies for the next years.

In 2006, the Regione Piemonte also approved a new law on research that envisages doubling the resources allocated for the next three years, with the objective of reaching 3% of GDP, in line with the European Lisbon strategy on innovation and competitiveness.

One step ahead
As always, in the years to come, Piemonte is going to offer both the past and the future, tradition and innovation.

Three major events are going to take place in the years to come. First of all, in 2008 Torino is World Design Capital: it’s the first city to be nominated “World Design Capital” by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design and we have planned a series of events, exhibitions, seminars and design activities to present current trends and highlights from the world of design.

Just to confirm the strict relation between Piemonte and science, Torino has been chosen to host ESOF 2010, the Euroscience Open Forum that is held every other year, visiting the major scientific cities of Europe and bringing European science to the attention of all citizens. Again, Torino has won the competition over the other candidate cities thanks also to its aim to link together science, technology, industry and design.

To close the circle, and going back to where our narration began, Torino is nominating itself to host the celebration of the 150th anniversary of Italy’s unification.