Campania Startup 2023: Boosting Innovation and Regional Competitiveness

It was published yesterday in the Official Bulletin of the Region (Burc number 29 of 04/04/2024), the final ranking of the applications related to the 'Campania Startup 2023' Notice, which aims to support the creation and consolidation of innovative startups with high knowledge intensity, to increase the competitiveness of the regional production system through the development of innovative products, processes, and services, in line with the priority trajectories of the 'Smart Specialisation Strategy in research and innovation - Ris3 Campania'. Campania accelerates on innovation with the launch of the Campania Startup 2023 Notice, with new projects based on advanced technological trajectories, such as the development of Artificial Intelligence systems and platforms, vehicle and passenger safety technologies, models and technologies for waste treatment and recycling, up to innovative systems for environmental, territorial and atmospheric analysis and control, and the development of systems and applications and multimedia services. The numbers of the notice speak for themselves: a significant financial endowment of 30 million euros, 871 projects submitted, and through careful selection, 418 of these were considered suitable with 145 applications scoring enough to receive the necessary funding to realize the business project. Enabling ICT technologies emerge as the most represented ecosystem (both in the application phase with 35.25%, and in the number of funded projects with 29.66%), followed by 'Biotechnologies and Human Health' (15.50% applications submitted and 10.34% funded) and by Energy Environment Sustainable Constructions (12.86% applications submitted and 21.38% funded). Overall, these data highlight a strong interest and significant potential for projects related to enabling ICT technologies, environmental sustainability, and human health, offering important insights for development and investment in innovation. Analyzing the ratio of submitted projects to funded projects for each ecosystem reveals the excellent performance of the Aerospace sector, which presents the highest percentage of funded projects compared to those submitted, with 28.57% (8 projects funded out of 28 submitted). And the confirmation of Enabling ICT Technologies with a 14% success fee (307 project proposals, with 43 applications funded). Finally, 25.60% indicated the willingness to invest in the inner areas of Campania. The provincial distribution shows an interesting detailed picture of participation on a territorial scale: Naples emerges with the highest percentage of applications with 40.87% of the total with 170 applications. Followed by Salerno with 16.59% and Avellino with 7.45. Significant is the extra-regional participation that includes Milan and Rome with about 10% of the proposals. Among the fundable projects: the province of Naples comprises 48.81% of the total, followed by the province of Salerno with 16.67%. Avellino, Benevento, and Caserta each account for 5.95% of the fundable projects.