Abstract:

The aim of the paper is to present the Lazio Pulse initiative as an example of a successful partnership and cooperation among University, Research Centres and Industry. The Lazio Pulse project aims to develop a dynamic ecosystem of public and private actors for improving Research and Innovation, based on the value and knowledge generated by cross-disciplinary Open Scientific Data. This ecosystem constitutes a scientific pole of excellence, which through open innovation, contributes to the national and international competitiveness of the Lazio Region by supporting growth of new businesses.

Lazio Pulse operates as a central node of a public and private network that, by exploiting Open Scientific Data, increases the collaboration among business and society, develops new opportunities for the territory, thus enhancing the existing skills and infrastructures. Lazio Pulse aims to foster also the development of new skills and business opportunities by educating “data scientists” and generating new value for young talents in the new emerging ICT sectors (Big Data, IoT, Cloud Computing, HLPC), thus increasing the economic growth of the “Third Sector” through new IT solutions and applications. By engaging the society in co-designing IT products and services, Lazio Pulse develops new ideas, guaranteeing a bigger impact on our society and private economy (mobility, smart cities, security, intelligent buildings, home automation).

Lazio Pulse is benefitting from the existing organisational, logistics and economic resources to build a sharing network among the local actors as part of the “eScience”, “eBusiness” and “eSociety” task forces, and at the same time enabling this network to be active in regional, national and international actions, for ensuring that the initiative will be sustainable over time.

The original and winning main characteristic of Lazio Pulse, compared to similar initiatives, is the direct connection between the scientific production, market and society, the great offer and the plurality of the actors involved.

Within the Lazio Pulse activities, we have organized the WIRE16 event (Workshop Research, Business and Innovation). This event, for the second consecutive year, combined the work and research of creative, entrepreneurs, students and researchers to present in 5 minutes their ideas, a practical example of the cross-sectorial cooperation among different worlds.

This paper provides a description of the activities developed within the Lazio Pulse initiative and the results achieved through the WIRE16 event, based on the analysis of ex-ante and ex-post quali-quantitative questionnaires.

Keywords:

Research, innovation, industry, cooperation, ICT, scientific data, education.