Expenditure on research and technological development is growing globally, but in general the European Union is not a major player on this scene. As regards research and development in Italy, on the other hand, things are not going badly, but we could definitely do better, even if we stay in the wake of last year’s global trend.
Research and development in Italy, too privatized
While globally the research sector has seen a significant increase in investment, the European Union is at least absent from an argumentative point of view. Italy, on the other hand, is not bad, but definitely more could be done. The main problem of the country, in fact, is that the major investments in the research and development sector are attributable to private companies, there are less and less funds provided by the State and an increasingly secondary involvement of universities.
On the other hand, the pharmaceutical research and development sector in Italy has found, one can say with some confidence, an excellent ground. Just think of the research pole of the pharmaceutical industry on vaccines in Siena, which is having excellent results and excellent funding.
Global confidence in knowledge
The latest data received, referring to 2018, clearly show how investment in research and development in Italy, but especially at a global level, is a sign of growing confidence in knowledge. It has never happened before, in fact, to see so much funding allocated to scientific research and technological innovation as in recent years.
But not only that, according to the latest surveys conducted by R&D Magazine this trend is destined to continue. It is expected that at the end of 2019 global investment will rise further with an increase of 3.6% compared to the previous year. The increase will therefore be slightly lower than in 2018, but still remains very important.
It remains to be seen how this global trend will manifest itself in Italy.