Italy: Industria 4.0

The fourth industrial revolution is transforming the world, bringing great opportunities but at the same time critical challenges. The Italian Ministry of Economic Development has launched the Industria 4.0 National Plan (I4.0), a strategy aiming at supporting industrial change through a series of conjunctional measures. The measures seek to promote investments in innovation, technology and skills development while taking into consideration principles set by the fourth industrial revolution. The Government intends to design a framework for effective and suitable operation. The top-down approach is, however, dependant on the extend to which the entrepreneurs will uptake and take advantage of proposed measures.

The Plan provides a wide array of measures in the short and medium term for the period 2017-2020, as well as long term, collectively ensuring the foundation of an efficient framework. The strategic measures focus on innovation, competitiveness and the development of skills. Moreover, complementary measures are put in place supporting efforts of Industria 4.0 in different areas. Altogether, the Government has earmarked €18 billion of financial funds for the purposes of the initiative.

The target audience are SMEs, micro enterprises and large companies without any dimensional, sectoral or territorial constraints. The key stakeholders involve Ministries, regional governments, academia, research centres, trade unions and business associations which are all represented on the national Steering Committee.