Mission 4 - Education and Research

The aim is to ensure equal access to education by facilitating access to tertiary education for students with socio-economic difficulties and a relatively high opportunity cost for advanced studies against an early transition to the labour market.

The intervention aims to facilitate and encourage the transition from upper secondary school to university and tertiary institutions of higher artistic, musical and dance education and to reduce the number of university drop-outs, thereby contributing to an increase in the number of graduates (raising success indicators and mitigating gender gaps).

- fund research projects of major national interest (PRIN)
- offer new opportunities dedicated to young researchers in order to retain them in Italy, enabling them to gain initial experience of research responsibility.

Piano Scuola 4.0 is an ad hoc plan for digitisation in schools that aims to enhance spaces, their physical and temporal organisation, but also the training of those who live and teach in them - i.e. teachers, school staff and students.

The aim is to qualify and innovate university (and doctoral) pathways and increase the pool of human capital engaged in research-oriented activities in public administration and cultural heritage.

The aim is to systematise the enhancement of research on enabling technologies in the health sector in order to improve diagnosis, monitoring and treatment, including rehabilitation. The projects included in the 'Research Initiatives' relate in particular to robotics and digital tools, remote monitoring, process reengineering and data mining.

The aim is to enhance high-profile skills, particularly in the areas of Key Enabling Technologies.The measure provides for the activation of three-year doctoral scholarships for innovative doctoral programmes that meet the innovation needs of companies and promote the recruitment of researchers by companies.

Research infrastructures are facilities, resources and related services used by the scientific community to carry out research in their respective fields.The objective is to facilitate the osmosis between scientific knowledge generated in high quality research infrastructures and the business sector, fostering innovation.To this end, the measure supports the creation of research and innovation infrastructures linking the industrial sector with the academic sector, promoting the combination of public and private investments.

The objective is to support, also through a process of reorganisation and rationalisation, a network of 50 centres (Competence Centres, European Digital Innovation Hub - EDIH, Mark of Excellence, Test and Experimentation Facility, National Digital Innovation Points) in charge of project development, the provision of advanced technology services and innovative and qualifying technology transfer services to companies, with the aim of increasing advanced technology services to the benefit of companies by focusing on leading-edge technologies and production specialisations.

The Innovation Agreement is a facilitation, granted by the Ministry of Economic Development to companies, in favour of research and development projects with eligible expenses and costs of at least EUR 5 million.The procedure for filling out the facilitation application and further attached documentation has been made available on the website of the Managing Authority as of 19 April 2022.

The aim is to fund companies and research centres for projects on development, innovation and industrial production.

Innovation ecosystems are networks of highly qualified and internationally recognised public and private entities that aim to facilitate technology transfer and accelerate the digital transformation of companies' production processes with a view to economic and environmental sustainability and social impact on the territory. They are organised with a hub-and-spoke governance structure, with the hub carrying out management and coordination activities and the spokes those of research and innovation.

National research and development centres (or champions) are national research centres, selected through competitive procedures, capable of achieving, through the collaboration of universities, research centres and companies, a critical threshold of research and innovation capacity with respect to five areas selected by the MUR as being of strategic interest for the country's development.

The extended partnerships are networks of state and non-state universities, public research organisations, companies and other public and private entities of recognised qualifications, organised with a hub-and-spoke governance structure, with the hub carrying out the management and coordination activities and the spokes the research and innovation activities.