The INNO-Policy TrendChart annual country reports produced for 39 countries provide a thorough analysis of the innovation environment in each country. These reports highlight innovation policy trends and priorities and in the case of the EU Member States also help in appraising progress towards the relevant Lisbon objectives aimed at improving innovation performance across the EU.

Highlights of the 2008 edition of the Italian country report:

• Despite the world’s recession and the stagnation of the Italian economy over the past years, the two positive signs that have emerged are the growth of exports of the Italian high value added industry and the positive sign of the Technological Balance of Payments in 2006

• In terms of innovation performance Italy is still considerably behind its main European partners even if its overall performance has marginally increased over the five past years. According to EIS indicators Italy is in the group of moderate innovators, with a performance below EU average but above the group of catching up countries.

• Public & Business R&D expenditure, S&E graduates, tertiary education, lifelong learning, early stage venture capital, EPO and USPTO patents show values below the EU average, reflecting a difficulty in overcoming the country’s traditional weaknesses

• Major innovation challenges identified:

Challenge 1: Innovation financing (especially venture capital) Shortage of finance both from public and private sources has been recognised as one of the main factors that hinder innovation.

Challenge 2: Mobility of talents
Italy is characterized by low rates of retention and attraction of “talents” (i.e. university graduates, researchers, scientists and high-skilled human capital). Outflows of talents may put a serious and strong break to innovation in the next years as the brightest human resources are moving away. Likewise, the country is not very appealing to foreign nationals as shown by the low percentages of foreign students that graduate or obtain a Ph.D in the Italian universities.

Challenge 3: The improvement of technology transfer mechanisms to reduce the existing gap between research and the market.
Technology transfer processes should be further promoted since one of the flaws of the Italian system is its difficulty in generating innovation from knowledge and research inputs.

Read more on the Country Report 2008

the link to download the report is:
report