Priscila Lena Farias / Anna Calvera Marcos da Costa ... - Blucher

MORTATI, Marzia / SIMONELLI, Giuliano
tion of the Milan Chamber of Commerce. Established in 2008, it
offers support to local SMEs mainly through informational services
with a special focus on R&D activities. The service areas
are: (a) Information and Business Services, dedicated to linking
local companies with European, national and local funds as well
as to promoting the local business system; (b) Innovation and
Technology Transfer, especially focused on creating connections
with research and external competencies.
InnovHub is mainly concerned with informational activities that
are communicating the opportunities for innovative companies,
both in terms of funding and competencies retrieval. It facilitates
innovation by participating in networks and projects to connect
local firms to research, while core activities are based around
services with a lower added value. This is a more traditional CITT
and its growth toward higher added value services is mainly
driven by European policies. This can be considered a paradox,
because of the territorial location of the center. Milan is in fact renowned
for being the European Design Capital, and the creative
industries play a relevant role in the local economy. This contrast
makes the case quite interesting, as one of the centers with a
great underexplored potential. At the same time it exemplifies
the situation of many other CITT that are struggling to evolve
their offer.
The interview has underlined that one of the main causes of this
situation is the low understanding of design competencies in general,
although many of the existing initiatives could greatly benefit
from a contamination of skills and perspectives. Few steps have
been made toward the creative industry sector. Recently 10 scholarships
have been assigned to young researchers for studying
the policies’ system in interesting European regions. In addition
InnovHub is endorsing the development of national policies for
user-centered and non-technological innovation.
Interview 4: Aster
Aster is a Consortium between the Region Emilia-Romagna,
the local universities and the national research centres operating
locally (CNR and ENEA), the Regional Union of Chamber of
Commerce and the Regional Entrepreneurial Associations. It promotes
actions for developing the regional productive system towards
industrial and strategic research, for transferring technological
competencies to the productive system, for educating the
local human capital to innovation. Its main actions are: (a) High
Technology Network, made of industrial research laboratories
and centres for technological innovation; (b) Business Program,
that includes services for creating business networks and to address
needs, like financial assistance and IPR services; (c) European
Program, regarding informational services on European
policies and funding; (d) Human Capital, involving educational
activities. The first of these underpins all others, as it sustains
the retrieval of resources from actors in the network.
Aster’s activities are totally concentrated in right quadrant. This
is an important difference with the other cases. The reason resides
in the nature of the centre, as strongly oriented to acting
as a network, pulling resources when needed and creating a
system around local needs. Its relationship with design is not
consistent. Besides few attempts of promoting its competencies
within the High Technology Network (e.g. Design Centre in Bologna,
lasted only two years), the collaboration has not been able
to flourish further. Recently the attention has moved toward the
creative industries, but this remains linked to specific projects
(e.g. the project Creative Growth).
3. System transformation: how to move
forward?
The interviews witness a moment of transformation that is peculiar
of a country with a strong tradition in governmental and
public support to SMEs. Italian public bodies are currently undergoing
a redefinition of their function and role that moves into two
converging directions: on the one side they are shifting their attention
towards including services with higher added value (with
design included here); on the other they are being re-shaped to
become more flexible and less bureaucratic, and to meet the current
requirements of leanness (Mulgan, 1997). The investigation
shows that although Italy is reach in design culture, history and
tradition, a real collaboration between designers/SMEs is highly
personal. This means that it varies with the characteristics of the
territorial context, and it depends on the personality of the entrepreneur
and on the company’s culture. Thus it reflects specific
contextual conditions, resulting in an uncertain national support
system. In a wider innovation context, business challenges are
no longer represented only by intensified global competition,
but mostly by the ability to collaborate while operating with distributed
teams and offering co-created solutions (Poynor, 2008;
Owen, 2007). This requires complex interventions negotiated
between different socio-economic actors (companies, institutions,
citizens) working in teams of multi-experts. The support
for achieving this ought to be more flexible and adaptable, and
must operate resembling an ecosystem (Mortati, 2011).
The Italian situation is peculiar, because of its tradition of successful
collaborations between entrepreneurs/designers. These
have been based on trusted friendships that would influence the
development of the company’s culture (Utterback et al., 2007).
Because of the need for this kind of external support, Italian design
companies have developed in networks based on strong
bonds, capable of pulling resources from a distributed system of
suppliers. This was mainly hidden in the personal relationships of
the entrepreneur, thus very difficult to measure and support. Relationships
would often emerge by serendipity, creating models
that could not be replicated top-down and where design would
represent a tacit addition. Due to the difficulties in grasping this
structure, the government has developed a networked system
of public support very specialised locally and bound to know better
the necessity of an area. The interviews show how this kind
of organisation is no longer sustainable, unless new kinds of networked
structures are thought. For example, the wider business
landscape is increasingly valuing designerly approaches (Boland
& Collopy, 2009), calling for a new entrepreneurial culture
Design Frontiers: Territiories, Concepts, Technologies 311