Established in 1563 as a charitable brotherhood to help the poor and fight usury, the Compagnia di San Paolo is nowadays one of the most important European private foundations. Together with the operating foundations and research centers it has set up in the last ten years, the Compagnia is at the center of a system that could be described as a “non-profit group”.

With assets amounting to Euro 9.46 billion (as of May 31, 2007), the Compagnia is one of the largest foundations in Europe. From its headquarters in Torino, it operates mostly in Italy, but its geographical scope--encompassing Europe and extra-European countries--allows the Compagnia to boast of its role as a major international player in the world of philanthropy.

Our mission
As stated in its Articles of Association, the Compagnia pursues “goals of social good, to foster civic, cultural, and economic development”;
in the community. It operates in research, education, art, culture, healthcare and welfare.
The revenues generated by its assets accumulated over the centuries, and which we undertake to pass on intact to future generations, are made available for these aims.

How we work
To set its programs, the Compagnia has adopted a planning system based on the definition of multi-annual (four years) and annual guidelines.

As for the tools it has put in place to implement its activities, the Compagnia has moved through the years from pure grant-making to a more proactive approach, which implies being involved into projects with an operating role, launching its own programs and calls for applications, setting up partnerships with subjects and other foundations operating in its fields of interest, becoming an active member of grant-maker networks.

The picture is completed by the operating bodies, set up in partnership with the Università di Torino and the Politecnico di Torino, which make up the “non-profit group” and are engaged in several target sectors of the foundation.

The activities of the Istituto Superiore Mario Boella in the field of ICT and of SiTI (Higher Institute on Territorial Systems for Innovation), that are described below, have a particular relevance for the Compagnia’s commitment to the development of applied scientific research. The Articles of Association of the Compagnia, the regulations for its institutional activities, the documents for its annual and multi-annual planning and the annual reports are available on the foundation’s website. In 2006, the Compagnia spent Euro 148.5 million to support 880 initiatives in its sectors of activities. In the research and education sector, 225 grants were earmarked, amounting to Euro 46.8 million.

A special commitment towards research and higher education
The research and education sectors make up, with a total amount of Euro 48.2 million, one-third of the Compagnia’s budget for 2007.

This naked figure tells the story of a foundation deeply committed to the support of research and higher education, which we see mainly as “pre-competitive development factors”.

Scientific research
In the field of scientific research, the Compagnia channels funding towards science and technology centers of excellence, focusing on fundamental research and on experimenting new technologies, and on scientific dissemination.

As for the centers of excellence, the Compagnia supports projects in life sciences, nanotechnologies and microstructures, information and communication technologies. Some of the most significant Italian grantees include the NIS-Nanostructured interfaces and surfaces center of excellence in Torino, the National Cancer Research Institute in Genova, the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research in Milano, the Institute for Scientific Interchange in Torino and the universities of Torino, Genova and Napoli and the Politecnico di Torino. In particular, in the field of biomedical research, the Compagnia focuses on projects linked to pathologies with an important social impact, above all cardiology, oncology and problems related to the aging of the population. In addition, the Compagnia also sustains projects in biotechnologies and their possible applications, with a special attention for the new Center of Molecular Biotechnologies of the Università di Torino, and bio-engineering.

The main project of the Compagnia in this field is the establishment in Torino, in the second half of 2007, of the Human Genetics Foundation (HuGeF), in partnership both with the Università di Torino and the Politecnico di Torino. The new research institute will adopt an interdisciplinary approach and cover activities in advanced training, cutting-edge research in the field of human genomics and proteomics and related scientific and technological disciplines, with a view also to the bioethics element. The project aims both to strengthen the local competencies and attract talents.

In 2006, the Compagnia launched a multi-year neuroscience program that covers the whole spectrum of disciplines that study the nervous system and the pathologies that can effect it.

With 2007, the Compagnia launched a new thread on sustainable energy, focused on studies and research projects on new technology and new energy sources that facilitate the transition towards a sustainable energy system.

The Compagnia is committed to the diffusion of science as one of its most important goals in the field, open to all possible audiences, from students and teachers to the general public. To this end, it has adopted a multi-tier approach to scientific dissemination, ranging from teaching to communication in science. Among the most important projects in this area, it is worth mentioning Science for Children, in collaboration with the Nobel Laureate Sir Harold Kroto, which aims to spread to children scientific knowledge and awareness of the role of science and technology for daily life and sustainable development.

The Compagnia also supports major events, such as the Festival della Scienza di Genova, and the Annual Virtual Reality Conference and European Researchers Night in Torino. Finally, the Compagnia jointly led, in partnership with a vast group of local partners, Torino’s successful bid to host the 2010 edition of the Euroscience Open Forum (ESOF), Europe’s most important forum for presentation and debate of leading scientific trends and key science policy issues. For the event, taking place from July 7-10, 2010, Torino will host thousands of leading scientists, young researchers, policy makers, business people and journalists from all over Europe.

Economic, social and political sciences
The Compagnia’s commitment towards socio-economic and political research and training is one of the choices that define its identity among the main Italian and European foundations.

In this field, at least two aspects deserve to be highlighted.

The first one is the setting up, in partnership with the Università di Torino, of a center--the Collegio Carlo Alberto--that is already playing an important role in higher education and research in the economic, political and institutional sectors. The latter one is the central role that the Compagnia has reached as one of the main supporters of research in the field of European and foreign affairs, both in Italy and in Europe. Instrumental to this achievement have been cooperation with some of the main European thinktanks (CEPS, EPC, IAI, ISPI) and partnerships with other foundations (first of all, the German Marshall Fund of the United States). The most recent and major step in the field has been the setting up of the European Fund for the Balkans in partnership with three European foundations (King Baudouin, Bosch, Die Erste), which represents the first move to the region made by an only-European group of founders. It is also worth mentioning the Compagnia’s research program on European Foreign and Security Policy Studies, promoted jointly with the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation and the Volkswagen Foundation, with the aim of establishing a network of researchers specializing in European policies on international relations and defense.

Improving the university system
The Compagnia supports the development of the Torino university system and concentrates on promoting centers of excellence, building facilities and offering advanced post-graduate training, as well as favoring the internationalization of Italian universities in the foundation’s community of reference.
The Compagnia has also started an intense cooperation with the Università di Napoli, the second largest university in Italy.

In 2006, scholarships were awarded in science, economics and law post-graduate training at the Università di Torino and to students coming from China, India, Brazil and Poland for engineering and motor vehicle studies at the Politecnico di Torino, and for an exchange program, at PhD level, between a group of Italian universities, led by the Università di Torino and Bengali universities, all with a view at promoting the internationalization process of the Italian academic system.

Furthermore, the Compagnia supports a major project of the Association of the Rectors of Italian Universities aimed at evaluating and enhancing the range of services offered by Italian universities.

The Compagnia funded a number of programs in the framework of support to advanced training, among others: peacekeeping, urban studies, intellectual property, cultural management, international relations and cooperation in development.

SiTi
SiTI–Higher Institute on Territorial Systems for Innovation is a non-profit center of excellence set up in 2002 between the Politecnico di Torino and the Compagnia di San Paolo. Its mission is “to promote, lead and enhance research and high-standard training oriented toward innovation and socio-economic growth”.

It specializes in: city and territory, identifying innovative scenarios of territorial development and upgrading; environment and landscape, focused on their preservation and valorization; innovation and development, carrying out benchmarking activities, studies on mega-events, projects utilizing novel technologies; architecture and heritage, offering professional advice for the protection and enhancement of historical heritage; infrastructures and transports, proposing state-of-the-art interdisciplinary solutions to complex systems; integrated security systems, related to critical infrastructures and networks, cybersecurity and cultural heritage. In 2006, jointly with the UN World Food Program, SiTI and the Politecnico established the non-profit association ITHACA to develop tools and methodologies in support of emergency preparedness and response operations.

Istituto Superiore Mario Boella
Founded by the Compagnia di San Paolo and the Politecnico di Torino, the Istituto Superiore Mario Boella (ISMB) has as industrial partners Motorola, SKF, STMicroelectronics and Telecom Italia.

ISMB is an important example of the working cooperation of academia and business: it is a center of applied research in wireless technologies with 250 researchers working in laboratories specializing in antennas and electromagnetic compatibility, e-Security, photonics, microsystems, satellite navigation, networking and wireless communication protocols, wireless technologies for multimedia and related applications. Specific areas of expertise include the radio frequency identifiers (RFId), digital terrestrial television (DTT), sensor wireless networks (SWN), satellite receivers, plastic optical fibers. The laboratories are manned by researchers from the institute, the Politecnico, industrial partners and customers.

This working method has, as final result, engineering prototypes, which enable companies to inject innovation into their products and production processes in shorter times. Of the projects currently underway, 20 are funded by national or regional bodies, 20 are subsidized by the European Union and 30 are the result of industrial cooperation agreements.

ISMB works together with all the other academic/industrial research centers in the Torino area and is a partner of the Torino Wireless District.

It cooperates with important international institutions: the Anderson School of Management of UCLA (University of California at Los Angeles), the FAF M¸nich University, the University of California at Berkeley, BUPT - Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, the Henry Samueli School of Engineering of UCLA, the Office of Outer Space Affairs of the United Nations, ERTICO, the European agency for Intelligent Transport Systems and WINMEC consortium of wireless companies in Los Angeles.

Collegio Carlo Alberto
The Collegio Carlo Alberto is a foundation created in 2004 at the joint initiative of the Compagnia di San Paolo and the Università di Torino. Its mission is to foster research and teaching in economics, finance and political science.

Several research centers, each with its own mission and identity, carry out their activity at the collegio.

The fellows of the collegio contribute to creating a dynamic international research environment involving residential faculty, post-docs, and visiting faculty.

The collegio hires junior faculty and researchers in economics through the international job market. Three master’s degree programs and four doctoral programs are held at the collegio.

In 2007, the collegio instituted the Carlo Alberto Medal, to be awarded to an outstanding Italian economist (resident in Italy or abroad) under the age of 40.

The first winner is Nicola Persico, Professor of Economics and Professor of Law and Society at New York University.

The first Vilfredo Pareto Lectures in Economics and Social Sciences have been delivered in 2007.