Actes du colloque Marché de la recherche regiosuisse & Colloque ...

24 Alberto Bramantimaterial ones, i.e. knowledge, human capital, cultural heritage, and the uniquenessof territories) and on the endowment of the economies of agglomeration (districts andcluster-like networks of firms). Looking at the last two decades (1990s and 2000s)within different regional development plans we can easily identify a complete set ofcomplementary measures, equally widespread, ranging from ‘supply of real services’to ‘support of technical innovation and technology transfer’; from ‘easier access ofsmall companies to credit’ to ‘labour market policies’; from ‘policies for equipped areas’to ‘environment and tourism’.Notwithstanding different important results achieved, three main mismatches remainstill to be composed and, precisely, they relay to:– finance and budget constraints vs. decision-making level (there is no matchingbetween who collect taxes and who spend public money);– administrative vs. functional regions;– inter-regional coordination and collaboration.Italy is now (slowly) implementing in the key areas of health, social assistance andeducation, the idea to define the ‘standard costs’ of providing some centrally defined‘essential level’ of services. Even if both the definition of standard costs and the revenuesharing mechanism will surely require difficult negotiations, this is a promisingway to close the gap related to the first mismatch.In this frame, Northern regions have implemented different regional policies aiming atfostering their territorial competitiveness, enhancing the quality of the services provided,and making appropriate use of European structural funds which remain, byand large, the main source of financing discretional policies.The endemic shortage of regional financial resources, and the further constraint representedby the ‘domestic stability pact’ 5 , have pushed regions to guide their SMEsalong a path of qualitative growth, not only financing them but, most of all, offeringthem know how and competences. Among the most recent regional interventions wefocus on three main fields of actions on which many Northern regions are deeply involved:innovation (§ 2); aggregation of firms, mainly SMEs (§ 3); and internationalisation(§ 4).2 Innovation policy: matching ‘proximity’ with technologicalvalue chainNowadays there is a large agreement at the policy level that innovation (in its broadermeaning) is a key to the future achieving sustainable long-term economic recovery,as advocated also by the European Strategy ‘Europe 2020’. We strongly need innovation(research and innovation, R&I), particularly in this international moment, fortwo main reasons:5 The ‘domestic stability pact’ is design to involve regions and other local authorities in the effort toattain the objectives for general government budget under control. The stability pact requires localbodies to reduce deficits and their stock of debt.