National priorities in the field

of industrial research

2nd Report

(2000 – 2001)

Sponsored and supported by:•Ministry of Education, University, Research•Finmeccanica Group•ENI Group•SNIA Group•Italtel•CNR (National Research Council)•Sviluppo Italia

The reasons:The Report reflects the need for Italy, as every other industrialised country, to select the topics of technical and scientific development that it must tackle and to develop with its own, necessarily limited resources (financial, human and infrastructural).

The Report is intended as an informative tool to support RDTI policy making of national level.

The objectives:•To analyse the alternative scenarios which could plausibly accompany the evolution of the country’s technical-scientific and industrial system, resulting from changing technologies and industrial strategies.•To identify the emerging technologies that are necessary to meet the requirements of the Italian industrial system, with a rational, well-grounded, accepted process.•To support the decisions taken by government, and by all public and private players in the national research and innovation system, in the definition of their policies and implementation programmes.

The reasons and the objectives

The approach to Technology Foresight is based on the analysis and identification of the “critical” emerging technologies in the medium/long-term and the assessment of their possible impact on Italian industry.

The critical nature of the technologies is assessed on the basis of a suitable set of criteria, translated into qualitative and quantitative indicators.

In this way, the critical nature of the technologies is not only the result of their degree of innovation, but also of their capacity to positively influence the performance of Italian industry.

The approach to Foresight

The emerging technologies were selected on the basis of the following characteristics:

— transversality;

— pervasiveness;

— current state of development at the initial stages of the life cycle;

— possibility of reaching a state of industrial development (at least as a prototype)

within a ten year horizon.

The technologies were identified within the following Areas, broken down into Families and Components:

— Advanced materials;

— Information and Communications Technologies (ICT);

— Biotechnologies for health, agriculture, industry, environment;

— Energy technologies;

— Sustainable management and manufacturing technologies;

— Space technologies.

The Technologies

The notions of Attractiveness and Feasibility were used to assess the “critical nature” of the emerging technologies

On the basis of the notions of Attractiveness and Feasibility, a set of indicators was defined to guide the perspective analysis and the assessment of the emerging technologies.

The indicators are shown in the following tables:

The assessment criteria

Attractiveness: measures the consistency between the technologies and the needs of the industrial system (of every sector and firm size).

Feasibility: measures the ability of the research system to carry out the related technical-scientific developments, and the capacity of the industrial system to translate them into concrete applications.

Attractiveness

Main features:•Enabling •Pervasiveness •Uncertainty and risk of development•Time horizon

Impacts on industry:•Industrial sector•Size of application markets•Size of firms•Competitive advantage creation•New firms creation•New employment creation•Dependence on strategic resources

Impacts on society •Environment•Security •Mobility•Territorial unbalance

The assessment criteria

Feasibility

State of the research sector in Italy:•Level of know-how and expertise•Relevant private and public research organizations•Stock of private and public researchers•Expenditure in R&D•Technological infrastructures

Interaction between public and private research:•Cooperation academia-industry•International cooperation•Technology transfer

Social issues:•Social acceptance•Ethical questions•IPR

The operational methodology

The identification of the emerging technologies, down to Families and Components, and the assessment of their criticality were carried out by panels of experts, one for each Area of technologies.

The experts came from industrial research, higher education and public research sectors and were selected according to their competence, vision, independence.

One or more coordinators were appointed to each panel, with the task of guiding the work of the experts and preparing the reports.

The project team of Fondazione Rosselli managed the overall foresight process, defined the operational methodology, elaborated the reports, monitored the work of the panels.

The Foresight process

The organizational structureThe following organizational units were established for designing, implementing and monitoring the Foresight process.

Steering CommitteeMade of representatives of sponsors, with the task of providing guidelines to the project team, evaluating the intermediate and final results, establishing appropriate interactions with sources of knowledge.

Expert panelsAltogether more than 100 experts from academia and industry.

Project teamCoordinated by prof. Claudio Roveda and made of some senior and junior researchers.

The Foresight process

The reports for each Area of technologies were synthesized through some tables, as shown in the following for the Area of ICT.

The results

Three sub-areas have been identified within the ICT area:ComponentsInformation technologiesTelecommunications

The following technology families have been identified in each sub-area:

Components sub-Area:Silicon microelectronics. (FT1)Compound semi-conductor components for very high frequencies. (FT2)Optoelectronic and photonic components. (FT3)Intelligent microsystems and microsensors. (FT4)Nanoelectronic and molecular devices. (FT5)Design methodologies for SoC integrated circuits. (FT6)

Information Technologies sub-Area: Development of dependable embedded systems; (FT1)Information management; (FT2)Software for the cooperation and dynamic integration of application services; (FT3)Multi-channel and multi-sensor interaction; (FT14)Development, deployment and management of software systems; (FT5)Presentation, acquisition and management of knowledge; (FT6)Bioinformatics. (FT7)

Telecommunications sub-Area:Basic technologies; (FT1)Infrastructure and networks; (FT2)Services and applications; (FT3)Terminals and interaction with users (FT4)

ICT- The technology families

ICT- Components

ICT- Information technologies

ICT - Telecommunications

3rd Report

(2008-2009)

Sponsored and supported by: •Ministry of Education, University, Research•City of Milano•Finmeccanica Group•Pirelli Group•Sorin Group•CNR-National Research Council•Politecnico di Milano

The reasonsRecently the Italian government issued a strategic document “Industry 2015”, which identifies the main application fields for which the national industry should specialise by 2015, and devoted a large amount of financial resources with the aim of supporting the technological innovations needed for achieving the industrial transformations.

Fondazione Rosselli, together with the sponsoring organisations, intends to provided a vision of the technological structure of Italian industry by 2015, which is coherent with the general goals of the governments.

The objectivesTo identify and to evaluate the emerging technologies that in the next 10 years are likely to play a “critical” role for developing innovative and better performing applications in the following fields:-Energy-Sustainable mobility and logistics-Life sciences-Security-Cultural heritage-“Made in Italy” products

The reasons and the objectives

To provide the national government with a broad and detailed information basis, on which it can allocate the financial resources for implementing the “Industry 2015” programme in a selective way on a long term horizon.

The reasons and the objectives

For each field of applications the following main steps are being carried out:

Identification of the Key-functions

Identification of the Key-technologies for each key-function

The emerging technologies and focused in the following horizontal Areas:•Advanced materials•ICT•Biotechnologies•Nanotechnologies

Assessment of each key-technology in terms of its Attractiveness and Feasibility for the Italian research and innovation system, in relation to the likely roadmap of its evolution.

The assessment is based on a detailed check-list, which translates the notions of Attractiveness and Feasibility into an appropriate set of qualitative and quantitative indicators.

The approach to Foresight

The operational methodology

The identification of the Key-functions and the Key-emerging technologies, and the assessment of the criticality of the technologies are carried out by panels of experts, one for each field of applications.

The experts come from the users, the technology providers and the public research sector and are selected on the basis of their competence, vision, independence.

The project team of Fondazione Rosselli manages the overall foresight process, designs the methodology, issues the reports, monitors the work of the expert panels.

The Foresight process

As the Foresight process is still going on, some intermediate results only have been delievered up-to-now.

For the “Sustainable mobility and logistics” field the following Key-functions and Key-technology areas have been identified:

Key-technology areasSoftware systems•Application software •Artificial intelligence•Interfaces•Localization

Mobile & Wireless solutions•Satellite•Long, medium, short range•Broadcast

Identification systems•Sensors•Vehicle automation

Advanced materials•Infrastructures•Vehicles

Key-functionsPeople•Monitoring and management of traffic flows•Assistance to travellers•Safety

Goods•Fleet management•Supply chain management•Safety and security•Intermodality

Horizontal issues•City mobility & logistics•Ecosustainability •Social sustainability

The results

The expected final outputs

•List of critical technologies•Road-maps of critical technologies•Advice on national RTDI policy and its implementation

The results