World Manufacturing Week 2020

Confartigianato Imprese Lombardia on behalf of the partnership of the project “PMI NETWORK” granted by Interreg V-A Italy-Switzerland 2014-2020 Cooperation Program

12 November 2020

12:00 PM – 1:00 PM CET

On line event

In an Open Innovation context, the winning strategy for micro and small manufacturing companies is to defeat the Not Invented Here Syndrome and to overpass the companies’ negative attitude towards knowledge not generated in their internal R&D departments. Universities and associations play an increasingly important role in the innovation process of micro and small enterprises: the creation of strategic partnerships between the different actors of local innovation ecosystems is a catalyst for the development of entrepreneurial capacity and competitive growth.

We present a novel innovation strategy that Politecnico di Milano and SUPSI are experimenting in a cross-border territory between Italy and Switzerland (Lombardy and Canton Ticino) in an INTERREG EU Project. The approach is the result of an evolution of more than 10 years of interaction between universities, research centers, SMEs, and the stakeholders; the project is based on personal relationships and centered on the collaboration between people and not only on IT platforms.

After the description of the industrial context, we focus on the concepts of geographical and social proximity as a means to pursue cognitive proximity and to establish permanent innovation processes. Preliminary results and success cases are presented through the voice of the entrepreneurs.