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A science and technology park is an organisation managed by specialized professionals, mainly aimed at fostering the birth and development of enterprises with high technological content and at favouring the transfer of knowledge and innovation from universities and from research centres (to which the park is usually closely located), to the enterprises settled.
For this purpose, parks also offer various types of services to the firms they host, together with high-quality structures and common spaces.
In the HiCo territory, there are four science and technology parks, covering altogether a variety of specialisation areas.
The most advanced is AREA Science Park, the first multi-sector park in Italy and one of main parks in Europe.
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AREA Science Park AREA Science Park, the main science and technology park in Italy, has been active since 1982 and is managed by the "Consorzio per l'AREA di ricerca Scientifica e Tecnologica di Trieste", a public research institution supervised by MIUR, the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research.
Acting as a bridge between the academic world and the industrial reality, between innovation and the market, AREA Science Park stands out as a structurally interconnected system of enterprises with high knowledge intensity and public and private scientific research centres, supported by high value added services (financial assistance, technology transfer, training, marketing and communication). With approximately 90 national and international companies and research centres and 1,800 employees, AREA is a necessary and effective structure for territorial innovation, oriented to excellence. AREA creates ideal conditions for:
- facilitating cooperation and alliances among companies settled in the Park, by means of sector clusters sharing competences, resources and structures;
- promoting the diffusion of innovation in processes, products and enterprise organization, to exploit research activities from the economic viewpoint and increase competitiveness at a global level of the regional production system;
- favouring the connections between the worlds of research and enterprises and creating and developing new enterprises with high knowledge intensity;
- providing advanced training for enterprise innovation;
- favouring the internationalisation of the regional research and enterprise system.
Besides the two massive campuses in Padriciano and Basovizza (Trieste), covering a surface of 91,000 m2, a new Technology Pole has recently been opened in Gorizia. All AREA Science Park locations are perfectly served by the motorway network and are very close to the Friuli Venezia Giulia airport. The main sectors of activity of AREA Science Park are: genomics and biotechnologies, information and communication technologies, physics and new materials, environment. Moreover, research is being constantly developed to deal with applications in the pharmaceutical, food, car, microelectronic and computer-science industries.
The "Polo Tecnologico di Gorizia" is an AREA Science Park structure responding to the need for development of innovation and competitiveness, as expressed by the local economic and production system. The Pole, therefore, promotes economic growth and generates cooperations aimed at innovation in accordance with the needs of the territory. It is part of an innovation system that favours the establishment of a networking logic among local industry and research operators.
The Pole is located in the area of BIC – Sviluppo Italia Friuli Venezia Giulia, near the Gorizia traffic centre. It aims at developing the following functions:
- orientation of local industries towards innovation and science;
- provision of information to the local economic system about opportunities and benefits deriving from the use of innovative technologies;
- promotion of cross-border cooperation;
- cooperation with research and university institutions;
- specialized training for professionals.
The Pole supports competitiveness of local enterprises by supplying advanced assistance services for research and technological innovation. To this aim, it aggregates companies that develop research programmes and offer performances with a high content of technology and knowledge. In order to accelerate this process, the Pole also creates new laboratories, which integrate the already available competences of the regional research system, such as the wood laboratory, for the development of new technologies for surface treatment and bonding techniques, and the components laboratory, which aims at becoming a technological reference tool, able to support a new “co-makership” system with the end customer. The Pole offers companies the following services:
- assistance in cooperations for project search and financing;
- support in patent search;
- assistance in personnel search and training.
- a research display, addressing enterprises intending to innovate;
- a headquarter of research laboratories of private firms, “mixed” university and enterprise laboratories, centres for certification and enterprise services;
- an incubator of new enterprises in emerging sectors, industrial and research spin-offs;
- a sponsor of initiatives, projects and innovative ideas of entrepreneurs, young people, researchers.
The Polytechnic develops research activities in the following fields: environment, astroparticle physics, nanostructures, multiphase processes and cryptography. It hosts 6 schools, 4 laboratories and 2 centres, and is among the co-founders of the International University Institute for European Studies and the Primorska Technology Park, which promotes the transfer of knowledge and innovations to the world of enterprises and leads research to respond to market needs.
The prestigious International Institute has started a cooperation with the University of Trieste in order to increase shared research, particularly in the sector of nanostructures.
