This report was produced by the OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities (CFE), led by Lamia Kamal-Chaoui, Director, as part of the programme of work of the OECD Regional Development Policy Committee (RDPC).
The work with Piedmont was undertaken in the context of a wider OECD project on regional innovation diffusion that aims to provide policymakers with insights on how to assess the strengths and weaknesses of innovation diffusion channels in their region. The project is co-financed by the European Union via the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO).
This work was co-ordinated by Maria Varinia Michalun and Sandra Hannig, under the supervision of Rüdiger Ahrend, Head of Division Economic Analysis, Data and Statistics, and Dorothée Allain-Dupré, Head of Division Regional Development and Multi-level Governance. Chapter 2 was drafted by David Burgalassi, Chapter 3 by Maria Varinia Michalun with inputs from Stephan Visser and Sandra Hannig and Chapter 4 by Sandra Hannig. This report incorporates substantial contributions, insights and comments from Pedro Marques (Research Fellow, INGENIO, Valencia, Spain).
The report draws on data collected by the OECD, including from stakeholder interviews. The OECD would like to thank the Piedmont Regional Government for its co-operation and support during this process. Special thanks are due to Giovanni Amateis, Tiziana Dell’Olmo, and Marco Manero from the Piedmont Regional Government, as well as to the Economic and Social Research Institute of Piedmont (IRES Piedmont), and in particular Filomena Berardi and Daniela Nepote. Sincere thanks are also extended to the large number of public, private, third sector and other actors who provided valuable inputs during the virtual one-week OECD mission to Piedmont in October 2020 and continuous feedback on the report. They include, among others, the innovation cluster managers, representatives from different departments of the regional government, regional (business) associations, trade unions, universities and incubators as well as the regional bank foundations.
Andrew Brenner edited and formatted the manuscript. Pilar Philip and Yingyin Wu prepared and co-ordinated the final publication, with support from François Iglesias in preparing the cover image.