" Miami Scientific Italian Community was born as a research innovation and technology transfer center (on the same model as the Italian Research Cities) and is today the most effervescent Italian ecosystem in the United States”, comments with FIRSTonline Fabio De Furia president of the Miami Scientific Italian Community, an all-Italian business model exported to Texas and California. Here's how it works in this interview with De Furia.
President, the Miami Scientific Italian Community celebrates its 10th anniversary. What advantages does it offer to the Italian innovation ecosystem?
“We facilitate the encounter of small and medium-sized enterprises with new technologies by supporting, directly and together with our partners, technological development programs and participation in USA grants, ITA national regional measures or Horizon Europe. The Miami Scientific Italian Community was founded in 2013 by the will of Unindustria Lazio, CNR, ENEA, La Sapienza, Tor Vergata, Roma Tre, LUISS, Finmeccanica, Polo Tecnologico e Industriale di Roma, Chamber of Commerce of Rome, Unicredit Group, Radio Dimensione Suono , Guida Monaci, my Group and a group of Italian Researchers already very active in Miami.
Also recognized as the Association of Italian Researchers Abroad by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and by the Ministry of University and Research, it is undoubtedly one of the most active associations of Italian researchers abroad which have distinguished themselves for initiatives also conducted jointly with the MAECI, subsequently Texas and then California were born with the same business model. It was such an innovative and disruptive project for the Italian innovation ecosystem in the United States that we took the time to explain it, make it understood and then we also agreed to have it copied, because our mantra is that 'it doesn't matter who does it, as long as you do it and well'. We broaden the knowledge and relationships between the Italian and US realities and multiply the opportunities. And all those subjects who manage, through the Miami Scientific Italian Community, to create a system and give concrete answers to problems and expectations benefit particularly from this”.
In a scenario characterized by uncertainties, risks and difficulties, science and technology, which have made it possible to respond in surprising times and ways to the Covid 19 pandemic, are now having to deal with transformations, economic crises and geopolitical changes. What do you think of it?
“The demand for more research and more innovation must therefore find new answers, adequate to the changes in the generation and use of technology also with respect to the relationship and transformations in the non-sequential relationships that lead from research to innovation.
The geopolitics of research, after two years of the pandemic and in the context of the new international scenarios, sees a new role for the showcases of skills, knowledge and results. New relationships are established with new reference territorial basins. There is certainly no drive towards self-sufficiency but globalisation, even in the scientific and technological fields, is changing its skin and more neighborly relationships are being created, where the neighborhood is not the geographical one but the one deriving from agreements, sharing, structured partnerships”.
Ten years after your birth, are you finding confirmation and new energy to strengthen your model?
“The creation of the first Italian platform for abroad for the scouting of patented technologies from the world of Italian public research was designed to add to the perception of Made in Italy abroad that Italy was not only 'Food, Fashion and Furniture ' but that in the belly of our Universities and Research Centers there were technologies that could compete with anyone in the USA and in the world.
A tool created to create the meeting between universities, companies and lenders and which represented and still represents the official channel through which technologies are valorised that have the potential to find concrete application from the encounter and exchange with the business world. A critical mass of more than 2000 technologies, (over time those of the Polytechnic of Turin, the Italian Institute of Technology, the Polytechnic of Bari have also been added}, ranging in all the main technological and industrial sectors and all the information contained within each 'patent file' they are created ad hoc to provide, in a concise and clear manner, the essential and useful information to trigger the interest of potential investors and create points of contact with companies. compete anywhere and with anyone”.
Do you think that our country still has difficulty placing itself in a system logic to create shared platforms and invest more in research and innovation?
“We have always stressed that research, technology transfer and innovation are not something to be improvised and that it is therefore necessary to have a medium-long term development strategy that uses knowledge and expertise as fundamental accelerators. In the relaunch of Science, Technology and Innovation, in addition to teaming up, associations play an essential role in this match, they are factories of the future, as they make researchers who have the ability to grasp the signs of change coexist with social and economics that are able to translate signals into concrete actions. In doing so, the conditions are created to respond to the challenges of the new paradigms of contemporary society today increasingly oriented towards sustainability and inclusiveness".
Does the research ecosystem abroad therefore need greater planning and a vision?
“The vision is completely missing. It represents the result of a combination of wills and behaviors that are refined through the concreteness of the objectives to be pursued, the tools used, the involvement of those who are able to contribute. Therefore, rather than talking about the possibility of increasing the ranks of Scientific Attachés at the helm of relations between the diplomatic consular network and the local innovation system, we need to value what much we have done in recent years, not uncritically but as a platform on which to develop programs to be able to give a vision and very long-term objectives capable of mobilizing all the projects aimed at that result.
We need an approach based on concreteness, the result of dialogue, and respect for roles, where solutions to serious problems are pursued by enhancing what has been built over time. And diplomacy can certainly contribute, being an effective tool for using scientific knowledge and expertise and for finalizing scientific efforts in order to achieve concrete objectives related to technologies. And scientific advisers in the Ministry, due to their institutional role, could favor all aspects of science, technology and innovation capable of advancing diplomacy with respect to the achievement of national and global objectives. We must therefore proceed in the direction of introducing greater clarity regarding the objectives and the paths to pursue them".
In short, is there a need for a Country Project and a new horizon with a renewed pact?
“In support of this design, the associations of Italian scientists abroad can provide a significant contribution, in the dual function of sensors in realities where scientific collaboration is present but can be further developed and as a bridge between actors, institutions, technologies and skills to promote exchanges, developments and enhancements. The process is complex and not easily simplified. The stages of development and the operational capacity of the individual entities are diversified but the sharing of problems and solutions, in the direction of a contribution to our country in this particular moment justifies a common reflection.
Proposing a new pact, through convergence, comparison of experiences, a showcase of what is being done at the moment, what the perceived needs are and how the wealth of skills and knowledge made up by the 'system' can be shared Italy'. A form of scientific diplomacy therefore that does not replace the institutional one but wants to offer an additional terrain that directly involves the operators in a cooperative and shared way, then leaving them the possibility of managing developments without further diaphragms. In a nutshell, an opportunity that is added without taking anything away”.
