In order not to waste the resources that the Pnrr reserve to Italy we must promote one culture of innovation that allows companies to develop innovation quickly and effectively.
Between opportunities and needs, Italy moves with difficulty towards innovation and it is no coincidence that it ranks 58th (out of 190) among the countries where it is easier to start a business (source, Business Doing 2020) : still lacks a common vision that directs the entire country towards a structural change and that it creates favorable conditions for innovation to be generated through interconnected actions and processes.
This emerged during the event Talk Europe, organized by Money.itwhere representatives of the European Parliament, expert professionals from SMEs and Startups and representatives of Italian innovative entrepreneurship met on what has already been done come on what it takes to foster a culture of innovation so as not to waste Pnrr resources.
What is the culture of innovation
Self the innovation is the creation of a positive change in the existing state of affairs, with a tangible benefit recognized on a large scale, the culture of innovation it is the dissemination of an approach that welcomes this change.
Culture stimulates innovation, as it encourages the taking on of new perspectives. Peter Drucker – the father of modern management – defined it as the ability to anticipate and invest in tomorrow’s opportunitiesbut it must be internalized by the whole system and shared in order to be implemented. «Culture eats strategy for breakfast», Drucker said: culture eats strategy for breakfast, that is, culture is the habitat in which strategy lives or dies. As impressive and well-structured as the National Recovery and Resilience Planwithout a cultural boost it will be very difficult to be able to implement these reforms and facilitate their execution.
Therefore, people are the engine of change and it is on human capital that action must be taken to spread a culture of innovation and make it “normal”.
What it takes to foster a culture of innovation
Fostering a culture of innovation means make innovation structural, so that more and more entrepreneurs become aware of the possibilities offered by the European Union in terms of tenders and funding. He insisted on this aspect Danilo Oscar Lancini, MEP of the League and of the Identity and Democracy group, according to which many companies do not grow because they are held back by technical difficulties or because they do not understand how tenders work. They echo him Maria Angela DanziMEP of the 5 Star Movement, convinced that «there is no innovation without human capital», and in turn all the participants in the Talk Europa, confirming the need for one greater knowledge of these topics.
«We need education and dissemination because without knowledge there is no growth“, he claims Hyacinth Flower, co-founder of AI Explained Simple. The culture of innovation must be taught to our children, as happens in China where startups and innovation are talked about on prime time television programs.
In Italy over 90% of enterprises are small and in many cases represent forms of self-employment. The poor aptitude for innovation is due – second Mariano Spalletti, Country Director of Qonto – to an entrepreneurial mindset focused on survival and not on growth and innovation. We must therefore promote a change of mindset.
Between critical issues then there are those that can hinder the diffusion of a culture of innovation regulatory bottlenecks which – as he observes Cristina Crupi, lawyer and author – prevent Startups and innovative realities from growing organically as happens in other countries. Always Crupi then underlines the need to organize transformation processes in an interconnected way, facilitating change in a structural way and creating favorable conditions for generating innovation. A concrete example is to promote innovation ecosystems on a national scale on the French model. No more cathedrals in the desert isolated from the rest of the community, but innovation centers capable of bringing together innovative startups and the Public Administration, to give a boost to the realization of the challenges of the Pnrr.
Pnrr, why (and how) Italy could lose the race for innovation