Volume 25

Italy’s metal-working and mechanical engineering industry, ranging from metals production to mechatronics, plays a fundamental role in the country’s manufacturing profile. On October 23, 2014 Fondazione Edison and the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (Lincean Academy) sponsored a conference in Rome to provide a forum for entrepreneurs, trade associations and scholars to discuss this topic. The conference focused on how the metal-working and mechanical engineering industry has contributed to the evolution of Italy’s manufacturing specialization, orienting it toward more innovative and higher value-added branches and making a significant positive contribution to the country’s foreign trade balance. Italy currently has the third largest trade surplus in the world for non-electronic mechanical engineering products, demonstrating a relatively unknown and unappreciated capacity to innovate. The industry’s success to date is no guarantee that it will continue in the future. Forward-thinking is required in terms of how the industry and industrial policy can continue to evolve. The proposed measures to strengthen the industry include public-private partnerships in research and the patent process, an aspect of technical-scientific cooperation that Fondazione Edison and the Lincean Academy have been jointly promoting for years.