Discussion paper on marine industry, shipping industry and green technologies in Marche regional economy

Written By Andrea Gramillano
Publishing 15 March 2017

With the submission of the discussion paper to the client, Comune di Fano, t33 concluded its tasks within the Blue Tech Adrion Cluster project, co-financed by the ‘Target call on European Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region EUSAIR IPA Adriatic Cross-border Cooperation Programme 2007-2013’.

The Blue Tech Adrion Cluster project was carried out by a parternship composed by: Unioncamere Veneto (Italy), ConCentro (Italy), Provincia di Pesaro e Urbino (Italy),Friuli Innovazione Scarl (Italy), Regional Ekonomska Zajednica REZ d.o.o. di Zenica (Bosnia-Herzegovina), Istarska Razvojna Agencija di Pola (Croatia). Three associated partners were also involved: Regione Marche (Italy), Regione Autonoma Friuli Venezia Giulia (Italy), Istria Region(Croatia).

The project aimed to enhance the development of a macro-regional cluster in the field of green technologies applied to shipbuilding in the Adriatic-Ionian area. Moreover, it aimed to underline the experience of some projects approved and financed by the IPA Adriatic Programme 2007 - 2013, which have been focused on different aspects which may contribute to the development of the feasibility study and the regional cluster macro networking platform. The projects identified for capitalization are:
- Cluster Club. The project focused on cluster policy in the maritime sector, devising a methodology and a map of small clusters and medium enterprises and technological research centers in the field of shipbuilding.
- Smart Inno. The project is implementing an intelligent platform for monitoring and for the promotion of innovation of SMEs. The platform contains a map of the stakeholders with more than 300 research centers, incubators, SMEs and clusters.
- AdriMob. The project aims at strengthening and developing sustainable transport systems along the Adriatic coast.

t33 prepared a discussion paper providing an insight into the strategy for research and innovation in Marche Region with a specific focus on the marine industry, shipping industry and on ‘green technologies’. The paper, gathering previous t33 reflections, contributes to the debate on the role of sailing in the regional economic environment, identifies the main opportunities for the financing of research and innovation in the context of the smart specialization strategy of Marche Region and enucleates some methods of stakeholder engagement in regional governance innovation and research.

The discussion paper stands for the ability of t33 to translate elements gathered through desk analysis, quantitative and qualitative collection of data into a document that could help and strengthen the debate among policy makers to discuss on future development of the sectors related to the cluster.