Horizon 2020 Italy

Horizon 2020 Italy (HIT 2020 Italy) has drawn for the first time a coherent and consistent governance model for the Italian research system in the wake of the EU 2020 Strategy for a smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, in order to harmonise National research programmes with the EU ones. Its double aim is:

• To fight against fragmentation and waste of efforts, uncontrolled growth and overlap of decision centres and cost centres, and duplication of tools and measures
• To create a governance framework in order to establish synergies among the main actors of the National R&D system and to harmonise their initiatives.

The governance strategy for the Italian research system outlines:

• New interaction policies, patterns and methods to facilitate consultation and negotiation among the different Government levels
• The integration of the National and regional strategies with the main European, International and transnational initiatives
• The crucial function of Public Administration, that becomes an active promoter of the new leading role that companies could play in research activities.

This new Public Administration deals with the productive sectors of the Country and identifies their real innovation needs; moreover, thanks to the transparency and the proactivity of its actions, it puts itself across the whole research chain ‘research-innovation-production’, in order to renovate and reinforce the relationship between research, innovation – in the broadest sense of the term – and society.

Within this strategy two main aspects are highlighted: valorisation, also in economic terms, of research results and open access.

According to the European approach, among the provided tools there are:

• A development plan for research infrastructures, that now are a National priority
• The regular use of evaluation and peer-review, which are key factors for the success of the National R&D system.