In this moment, in terms of economic events and beyond, it is not easy to have clear and defined ideas. Certainties are all questioned. The more we go on, the more we understand that what happened just now, the day before the advent of the corona-virus, is already history, the past. The paths that, with their problems, seemed traced, all dissolved. The future has always been a question, but it is one thing to face it in the presence of a functioning social and productive system, albeit with points of structural weakness, and another thing to think about it when the whole system has suddenly fallen into a state of total and prolonged blockade that downsizes social life, calls into question the permanence of important productive assets, he envisages dramatic impact on employment, suggests possible and accelerated changes in international relations. How long will this situation last? When will the real extent of the damage in terms of work and production be understood? When will it be possible to define the strategic priorities and resources that are needed to initiate and accompany the restart?
While phase 1 is being concluded, the restart is starting and will continue to consolidate. This remains conditioned by the persistent lack of a unitary and shared design on priorities, times, strategies, resources and interventions to field. All this, while the recession will have very heavy repercussions on the social framework and, above all, while the progress of changes concerning the role of public action, the priority purposes of productive activity and the dynamics of technological innovation will be imposed. A set of problems of absolutely extraordinary dimensions that requires government action capable of putting the country's productive forces (capital, labour, territories) in a position to closely combine the recovery process with that of renewal.
In this picture the trends of two processes will be decisive.
In the first place, it will be necessary to understand if and to what extent we will go towards a afterthought – already ongoing for some time – of the forms of the economic and political globalism (globalization changes because it reflects different historical phases, it doesn't cancel itself!) and how much this will produce a shortening of value chains, a reduction in the mobility of goods, the creation of more closed zones of influence, the activation of new relations following the modification of international relations.
The second process concerns the extent to which it will be achieved a united action of the current European construction to equip itself with rules, exceptional resources and adequate tools to accompany the path which, albeit in different forms, the various economies of the EU will have to face, if they intend to place themselves as a political-economic system of decisive influence in the global context in formation.
If this is the situation, the Italian Government, also in order to be able to play a credible role at EU level, has the duty to urgently indicate the strategic priorities to be activated, the resources, their origin and the ways in which it intends to set up a "project" (or a set of "projects") for the recovery and renewal of the economic system, also within the medium-long term European strategies. There is from hope that the numerous task forces set up will soon produce indications by the way, making it possible to evaluate their compliance with needs. The country needs a message of strong national unity that enhances the sense of social cohesion that the entire population has expressed in recent weeks and which has been fundamental for resistance to the virus. It is necessary to start with an integrated set of projects structured as follows:
- Reorganization of the health sector;
- Administrative speed;
- Innovation, technology transfer, digital development;
- International competition
- Territorial cohesion;
- Research, training, young people.
It is obviously not possible here to go into the merits of such complex problems and which, hopefully, are already being examined by the individual task forces. Here it is only permitted to motivate the prominence of the last of the themes indicated which to a certain extent constitutes the foundation of the whole if one wants to think about the future with a long gaze.
The area of knowledge, research and skills training must receive very special attention. It is a long neglected world, if not forgotten, by public policies. While there are many precarious workers waiting and, often, in humiliating conditions, researchers, doctoral students, post-docs are few and do not have sufficient and adequate structures to best express their potential. They choose abroad to do it and they are well received and pampered there, because they are generally very good.
Need increase the number of different positions up to double it in the next five years. We need funds and tenders for research, tax incentives for donations and facilities for necessary equipment and services, new advanced laboratories. It must be organised a sort of national Erasmusas well as overseas. But above all, the system must be the watchword for research and training. A system which, on the one hand, must be based on a structured network of relationships between research centers at a national level (between regions and within regions) and internationally. And, on the other, it must have a modern and competitive technology transfer fabric capable of strengthen the relationship between business and research, and to attract and retain human capital already trained and to be trained in the area. Still in the logic of the system, the question of the Competence Centers launched with Industry 4.0. The start-up and level of participation of universities and businesses should be verified, expanding their number if necessary and, above all, networking them with each other and with territorially specialized technology transfer structures, capable of increasing, as a whole, the ability to connection to what will be the new value chains.
The launch of a project on young people, training and skills would be a concrete message for the future and would constitute a general boost for the entire country. He would also benefit from it the noon where, among other things, there is much more youth unemployment and many unvalued excellences. In this regard, the Plan for the South, presented only in February by Minister Provenzano, and which envisaged, among its actions, a South aimed at young people, would require a careful remodeling of priorities, with the launch of a specific and immediate project in this regard, complementary to the national one. But there will certainly be a lot of discussion about the ways and intensity of Southern Italy's participation in the post-virus reconstruction in the coming weeks.
