Abstract:

We are all aware of the “structural” value of the innovation that leads the development of the knowledge and economy of the society: it is not a question of language, but an improvement in quality which, besides giving substance to the question of innovation intended as a 360 degrees process, encourages the renovating of the enterprise’s structure, the reality of the structural organization of the industrial system, the role of Research, the role of the new players, the policy of public intervention and so on.In order to evolve, ideas, products, talents are required and not all can come from the enterprise itself. What happens externally must be considered in the same way as what is generated internally, as long as it is coherent with the business model of the enterprise itself. The factor of success does not only depend on the enterprise, but it depends above all on the field of knowledge and on the relationship that the field of knowledge can have with the business world. And here is the difficulty: the dialogue that is between different stakeholders and entrepreneurships, particularly when the business is of a high creative formation but of a small operative dimension. The Industry Plan of the Ministry of Economic Development with Minister Calenda, which introduces and regulates Industry 4.0, in Italy, for the first time, it formalizes the need for businesses to diversify opportunities to innovate by implementing relationships with excellence centres and through spin-off/start-up activation as enhancing targeted research, high tech. Already in the wording of plan, the practice that has been adopted is the very interesting, involving the universities, research centres and entrepreneurial associations, including its local branches: this is to listen to the needs of the business base, and also to ensure that the Plan is really implemented by making companies, through their associations, universities and research centres, the protagonists of the business.The university thus acquires an unparalleled role, alongside the traditional need for scientific research to contaminate its own method with the "know-how" of the industrial world to make joint and shared innovation.In this context also start-ups become a system to be re-evaluated and valued to intercept change and opportunities, and to experience unpublished paths and approaches: in fact, it allows the ideas born at Universities to initiate and finalize open innovation projects with possible commercial results; for businesses, it means having the ability to blend a whole set of heterogeneous technologies to develop completely innovative processes, products and services. The paper wants to demonstrate how in this scenario he aims to create solid relationships between complementary players (like Universities and Businesses) man is undoubtedly the protagonist: the pervasive diffusion of all digital technologies which find their application throughout the product life cycle, imply that the confines of the designer's roles, the man of production and, more generally, the various corporate figures are gradually disappearing, and the consumer becomes an integral part of this transformation in which the 'physical' and tangible aspect accompanies the 'digital' and virtual based on the data.

Keywords:

Industry 4.0, University, Network, Open Innovation, Digital Technologies, Knowledge, Competence centres, Consumer.