15-05-2007
The economic recovery currently under way in Italy should be used as an opportunity to transform the model on which the development process is currently based, to encourage a model based on innovation at all levels to take root in our country
05/15/2007
Speech by Alberto Tripi at the 2007 EITO Presentation: “Innovation and Research in ICT in Italy"
A pre-budget report putting research and development at the core of the new phase of development, this is the proposal launched by Alberto Tripi in his opening address at the conference on “ICT Research and Innovation in a European Dimension”, held in Rome in connection with the publication of the 2007 Eito Report (European Information Technology Observatory), attended by the Communication Minister, Paolo Gentiloni, and many other members of the business and political worlds.
“The economic recovery currently under way in Italy – Mr. Tripi said – should be used as an opportunity to transform the model on which the development process is currently based, to encourage a model based on innovation at all levels to take root in our country. We need more investments in research and training in new ICT technologies to promote their widespread use and to enhance the production capacity and competitive edge of businesses and the efficiency of government.
At the same time we need to abolish protected markets and to open up to competition, to reward excellence and promote the development of cutting-edge services for the public and businesses. This is a strategic step we can no longer delay and which could be enshrined in the pre-budget report to be presented by the Government in just over a month’s time.
We hope and expect the report to contain the guidelines for ensuring that the next budget lays the foundations for an innovation and knowledge economy from 2008”.
“We are receiving more and more signals from Europe in this respect, Mr. Tripi continued. After the negative phase at the beginning of the decade, the European economy now seems to be going through a positive cycle guided by the widespread use of ICT.
The 7th Framework Program for Research allocates over 9 bn euro for ICT alone; of the 31 European technological platforms launched in the last two years a third concern ICT; the European Commission has proposed new exemptions to the EU regulations on state aid to research, because these investments do not distort competition. These are all marks that deep changes are under way, a process that is acknowledged with more or less intensity in all the EU member states”.
“Our country – Mr. Tripi concluded – cannot and must not remain on the edge of this move toward innovation, it must have the ambition of playing a leading role. The business world has started doing its part, what we need now are brave economic policies capable of decidedly boosting this trend and the efforts that have been made in this direction”
