The university’s third mission: research–industry relationships in Italy

Abstract

The work examines “The third mission of the University: the Research–Industry relations in Italy”, bringing together the territorial dimension with the relevant economic and institutional aspects. The experience of technological poles in France, especially in Grenoble, brings out the crucial role played by particular professional figures that act as “mediators” between research centers and enterprises. The redundancy of “cultural mediators” that allow to interact organizations that assume different codes, languages and objectives is anything but uneconomic, indeed it represents a sort of “public good” that produces external economies for the territorial system (Garofoli, 2015). Institutional awareness on this dimension is much more relevant to correct weaknesses and strengthen Athens skills and capabilities rather than refer to alleged apical positions in rankings produced by various institutions and newspapers. It is curious how these perspectives were already present in some “visionaries” at the beginning of the nineties, and how they have broken behavioural obstacles and bureaucratic inertia that in fact have generated opposition/conservation to change until they block the realization of those perspectives.

Keywords

University; Industrial policy; Italy; assessment of policies; innovation; human capital

JEL codes

O31; I23; R58