Industry 4.0: ENEA Tech and 8 Competence Center together for innovative enterprises and start-ups

Agreement aims to evolve Italian manufacturing sector, 2nd largest in Europe, through investment in technology and training.

ENEA Tech, the foundation whose mission is to invest in innovative technologies of strategic national interest, has signed a framework agreement of collaboration with Italy’s eight Competence Centers-ARTES 4.0, BI-REX, CIM 4.0, Cyber 4.0, MADE, Meditech, SMACT and START 4.0 aimed at identifying, elaborating and activating specific collaborations on projects and service activities for the development of investments in technology, research and training in the field of Industry 4.0.

The manufacturing sector has a leading significance in the Italian economy, which, with its nearly 380,000 enterprises and more than 3.7 million employees, is the seventh largest manufacturing power in the world, second in Europe. Specialization in frontier technologies is a key factor for the competitiveness of Italian industry. In this sense, the new National Transition 4.0 Plan launched by the government is the reference paradigm.

Competence Centers were established on MiSE’s initiative in the form of a public-private partnership to carry out orientation and training activities for companies as well as support in the implementation of innovation, industrial research and experimental development projects aimed at the realization of new products, processes or services (or their improvement) through advanced technologies in the context of Industry 4.0.

Thanks to this collaboration, companies, start-ups and research teams that already refer to Competence Centers will be able to take advantage of an additional opportunity to develop their technologies. ENEA Tech, in fact, operating through the Technology Transfer Fund established at the Ministry of Economic Development and which has an endowment of 500 million euros, is able to make various forms of investments in the venture capital of innovative start-ups and SMEs operating in the national territory and with high development potential in the strategic technologies of digital, green economy, health and deep tech.

To this end, research and development collaborations will be set up between the Competence Centers, ENEA Tech and other relevant entities to develop or grow innovative business initiatives. In addition, thanks to the tools, know-how and infrastructure of the Competence Centers, technologies developed by companies that are part of the network of centers of excellence will be evaluated, analyzed and exploited.

“Manufacturing is a key sector for the competitive growth and sustainability of the Italian system. It is a sector with a strong vocation for innovation and one of the leading sectors of made-in-Italy exports,” says ENEA Tech President Anna Tampieri. “Industry 4.0 is the reference model for directing investments in new technologies at the service of a sustainable manufacturing ready to meet the challenges of globalization. The government has focused on the new National Transition 4.0 Plan as the building block on which the Italian Recovery Fund is based. ENEA Tech is making its tools available to the national innovation ecosystem to support this important measure.”

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