RAISE and START4.0: a strategic partnership to bring innovation from research to market
Transforming research findings into technological solutions that businesses can adopt is one of the main challenges facing the Italian innovation system today. It is precisely in this context that START4.0 and RAISE have entered into a strategic partnership to bring innovation from research to the market, with the aim of guiding technologies developed through advanced research toward concrete and scalable industrial applications.
The agreement, through a Memorandum of Understanding between the Competence Center and the Innovation Ecosystem, connects two strategic tools activated through the PNRR, reinforcing a logic of integration between complementary initiatives and helping to maximize the economic impact of public investments in innovation.
From Research to Industrial Impact: Overcoming the “Valley of Death”
The goal of the collaboration is to take the wealth of technologies, devices, and prototypes generated by RAISE in the fields of artificial intelligence and robotics beyond the experimental phase, transforming them into products and processes ready for the market and for large-scale use.
It is at this stage that the collaboration with START comes into play, playing a key role in supporting the advancement of the technological maturity of the solutions developed within the RAISE ecosystem and in facilitating their testing in real-world application contexts. The collaboration was established to bridge the so-called “valley of death” of innovation—that is, the critical transition between research and the market, where the potential of scientific results often risks failing to translate into concrete benefits for the production system.
An integrated value chain linking innovation ecosystems and Competence Centers
The synergy between RAISE and START4.0 serves as a concrete example of integration between innovation ecosystems and national Competence Centers, two complementary tools of the PNRR strategy for the country’s digital transformation.
RAISE acts as a generator of advanced knowledge and cutting-edge technological solutions, while START4.0 intervenes in the industrialization phase, validating technologies in realistic operational environments, verifying regulatory compliance, and supporting the nationwide deployment of technologies. In this way, a continuous supply chain is built that accompanies innovation from research through to industrial adoption, reducing the historical fragmentation between scientific production and technological commercialization.
A structured pathway to bring technologies to market
Through the collaboration between RAISE and START4.0, a structured innovation support pathway is taking shape, designed to leverage the results of research funded by the PNRR and accelerate their transfer to businesses.
Solutions developed within the RAISE ecosystem may be selected based on their application potential and supported through a progressive process of advanced development, technical validation, and regulatory compliance verification. This pathway will enhance the safety of technologies, increase their level of technological maturity, and facilitate their testing in real-world industrial settings, leading to nationwide deployment through the START4.0 Competence Center network.
A concrete lever for maximizing the impact of PNRR investments
The collaboration between START4.0 and RAISE represents a replicable model of integration among innovation-oriented industrial policy tools. Connecting initiatives launched through the PNRR effectively strengthens their overall impact, creating continuity between research, technological development, and industrial adoption.
In this context, the START4.0 and RAISE strategic collaboration for innovation—from research to market—accelerates the impact of the solutions developed, fostering the diffusion of technologies throughout production chains and boosting the competitiveness of businesses on a national scale. A virtuous link between research ecosystems and technology transfer infrastructures.
New Opportunities for Companies in the RAISE Ecosystem
This collaboration opens up concrete opportunities for partner companies in the RAISE ecosystem and for companies selected through the cascading calls for proposals funded by the PNRR, most of which are small and medium-sized enterprises with high innovative potential.
Through the tools provided by START4.0, it will be possible to guide technologies developed within research projects toward subsequent phases of validation, testing, and industrial experimentation, facilitating their path to technological scale-up and market entry. This strengthens the national innovation system’s ability to transform scientific results into applicable solutions, generating economic value, competitiveness, and development for the productive sector.
RAISE to Market via START 4.0 – Tools Available to Businesses
Through the RAISE to Market via START 4.0 program, partner companies in the RAISE innovation ecosystem and firms selected through the PNRR cascade calls for proposals can access a structured support pathway toward the industrial adoption of technologies developed through advanced research in AI and robotics for businesses.
The program consists of a series of progressive tools designed to support PNRR technology transfer throughout all the phases between research and market entry.
The first phase involves selecting projects with the greatest application potential, through an assessment of the technological maturity and industrial readiness of the developed solutions. This activity is fully supported by START 4.0 and enables companies to effectively guide the path toward commercializing technologies.
Subsequently, companies can access advanced development pathways aimed at increasing the TRL of the solutions, with funding coverage of up to 50–70%, supporting the transition to real-world applications and fostering the scale-up of industrial innovation.
Another key step involves testing and validating technologies in realistic operational environments, including through the use of industrial testbeds and the Competence Center’s experimental infrastructure. In this phase, funding can cover up to 60% of costs, enabling companies to verify the performance, robustness, and replicability of their solutions.
The program also includes initiatives focused on regulatory compliance and industrial cybersecurity by design, elements that are increasingly central to technology adoption processes in critical infrastructure and advanced production systems. Here too, funding can reach up to 50%, helping to ensure solutions are ready for adoption in complex industrial settings.
Companies can then be supported in the implementation of industrial pilots—that is, application demonstrators in real-world usage contexts—which are essential for accelerating the market entry of technologies and reducing investment risk for adopting organizations. A contribution of up to 50% is also provided for this phase.
Finally, through the national network of Industry 4.0 competence centers, START 4.0, validated solutions can access dissemination and scaling pathways on an interregional and cross-sectoral scale, fostering the circulation of innovation across different production chains and expanding the impact of technologies developed within the RAISE innovation ecosystem.
Taken together, these tools represent a concrete lever to guide companies through a comprehensive process of Industry 4.0 technology validation, increasing the TRL for business innovation, and providing access to advanced experimentation opportunities, thereby helping to transform the results of PNRR-funded research into applicable and scalable solutions for the national production system.
Click here for the announcement and instructions on how to apply.
