Accelerating good innovation at the 10^th IBF: It is a journey…!

From discovery to innovation through creativity to productivity improvements, this seems to be the promising journey to today’s challenges associated with the climate and resource crisis and declining population in the EU

Italy and Slovenia have been living extraordinary times of progress in their bilateral relations. Looking back at the past decade at the 10^th anniversary of Italian-Slovenian Forum the two European partners can look even more ambitiously into the future, thanks to the closeness of cooperation between institutions and to many individuals who have contributed to the process of cooperation and shared innovation, the Forum’s president Jurij Giacomelli underlined in his opening address. Jozef Stefan Institute hosted the Italian Business Forum for the 6^th time, said its director Bostjan Zalar and Ivo Michele Polacco, Charge’ d’Affairs at the Embassy of the Republic of Italy, a partner in the project together with Italian Trade Agency (ITA), the Institute, and Italian-Slovenian Forum, wished a happy birthday to forum’s members and friends. At the occasion of the 10th IBF a strategic agreement of cooperation between Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche and Jozef Stefan Institute, signed just before Christmas 2022, was presented by the Institute’s assistant director Romana Jordan.

Despite differences in size, both countries share some similarities, when challenging the increase of productivity of the respective economies, demonstrated Polona Domadenik Muren, Full professor at the School of Economics and Business of the University of Ljubljana. Particularly, soft elements and effectiveness of institutions may be crucial lacking factors in the case of Slovenia. Evidence suggests that the challenges and the opportunities arising from the green transition have not been sufficiently addressed by companies, particularly not by the SMEs. Giancarlo Miranda, President of the Supervisory Board of Intesa Sanpaolo Bank in Slovenia presented the new horizon in the governance of banking institutions in relation to the accomplishment of the EU Green Deal, which aims at the implementation of the sustainable finance agenda. This has been provided by the EU Taxonomy (from 2020) and the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (from 2019). Following the requirements of EBA (European Banking Association), the green asset ration will have to be reported at the bank level across the entire industry already for 2023. CEOs of Unicredit (Lorenzo Ramajola) and Intesa Sanpaolo Bank (Luigi Fuzio) expect ta one-digit to low two-digit green asset ratio in the first reporting year for the Slovenian banking industry. In the insurance sector, the social element of sustainability has been particularly dynamic due to the healthcare reforms, reported by Generali Slovenia’s Member of the Management Board Mitja Feri. Needless to say that on the investment side, insurance companies are aligned with banks to the same regulatory framework, undergoing a period of a significant overhaul in their internal practices.

Serenella Marzoli, ITA’s director in Ljubljana, reported that the constantly growing bilateral trade between Italy and Slovenia exceeded 13 billion. It reached 13.8 billion in 2022 according to ISTAT. This firmly positions Italy as Slovenia’s 2^nd EU trading partner after Germany and 3^rd in total, given that Switzerland jumped to the first place due to the pharmaceutical giant Novartis’s recent opening of a regional logistics hub in the country, what seriously distorted the statistics. In other words, Slovenia aligns at par with some of the G20 Italian trade partners and holds a higher share in its total bilateral trade than Brasil or Russia.

Jadran Lenarčič, Forum’s president of the warrants committee and former director of Jozef Stefan Institute introduced the keynote speaker Antonio Bicchi, Senior Researcher, IIT, Genova and Professor of Control and Robotics at the University of Pisa, who delivered an inspiring insight into the future of robotics.

Slovenia, the neighbouring Autonomous region Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Croatia are expecting the launch of North-Adriatic Hydrogen Valley project, granting 25 million euro to 34 partners for research and innovation for what is the first cross-regional hydrogen valley in the EU. The project was introduced by Aleksander Gerbec, CEO of ECUBES, one of the partners and initiators of this cooperation, and Jerneja Sedlar from the lead partner, HSE (Holding Slovenskih elentrarn).

Edi Kraus, former general manager of AquafilSLO presented the results of EFFECTIVE Horizon 2020 project, which assured the next step on the pathway of innovation of a European leader in nylon production. Aquafil Group is engaged for more than a decade with the production of Econyl, a regenerated nylon. EFFECTIVE project results enabled them to support better the end-of-life phase of nylon based products.

Dorijan Maršič, director of Sežana Inkubator, presented the journey of Slovenia’s first and largest such intermediary. He demonstrated how a visionary decision to setting up such an institution in a small town at the border with Italy and at the outskirts of Trieste 30 years ago provided results in a form of flourishing destination for startups deriving from Italy and Slovenia alike.

Two such entrepreneurial endeavours, a family firm Paradigma founded by Andrej Volpi, earning 8 million euro in revenues per year together with its affiliates, and a young and diverse team of Genuiny, a future-minded blockchain based startup, presented their activities. Both represent two extraordinary examples of innovation taking place in Sežana, at the borderline Italy and Slovenia.

Over 100 participants at the 10^th IBF contributed to an extraordinary learning experience. All available presentations from the conference are downloadable here.