Technical and Vocational Education and Training in Italy: Structure and Changes at National and Regional Level

Even though the institutional framework is strongly centralised, Italy displays important territorial differences in the education system. Historically, such differences are interwoven with territorial differences both in economic and social development. This is the background of our analysis of technical and vocational education and training in Italy. In particular, in Section 1 we shall characterise the national education system; in Section 2 we shall outline the process of reform that has led to the present system of technical and vocational education and the main features of the regional vocational system. Within this framework, we shall present our main thesis – namely, that the system of technical and vocational education is also influenced by action undertaken at local level by the social actors who promote and fuel economic and social development. It is not possible to describe the several territorial specificities which ought to be taken into consideration if one is to speak of Italy as a whole: this because there are no systematic data to enable such analysis to be performed. In this paper, we shall therefore consider only the case of Emilia Romagna (Section 3), which is representative of areas of the Centre North having a highly developed local economy. In this context, we shall concentrate on three points: the role of technical and vocational education in the diffusion of the skills that encouraged the development of small and medium enterprises in the 1950s; the transformations in the last twenty years and, eventually, the process of adjustment of the training system within the changes both in the productive structure and in the composition of the population (age, origin). The last section draws together the threads of our interpretation of the system of technical and vocational education in Italy. Our analysis highlights three goals for a reform of the Italian education system: (1) to revise the meaning of primary literacy; (2); to fuel a social tendency towards technical and vocational education and training; (3) to bridge territorial differences in the education system. The first goal implies an education policy opposing the tendency to limit the possession of knowledge merely to a narrow minority of the population. The second goal considers technical and vocational education an essential element for activating a virtuous circle of growth, starting with a nucleus of knowledge learnt at school that thereafter is diffused and filters down in the tissue of technical and social relations. The last goal in our list calls for policy measures stressing the importance of the interweaving of social and economic sphere and education and training system The attainment of these goals requires sweeping changes involving several fronts of political, economic and social action. With regard to this, we argue that a necessary condition for a convincing start of the process of change is the redistribution of competences between the State and the local authorities. This implies redefining the role of teachers and directors of the individual schools, and the role and competences of the local authorities.Analysis of Education; Education Policy; Regional development policies; Innovation

Cooperation networks and innovation: A complex system perspective to the analysis and evaluation of a EU regional innovation policy programme

Recent developments in innovation theory and policy have led policymakers to assign particular importance to supporting networks of cooperation among heterogeneous economic actors, especially in production systems composed of small and medium enterprises. Such innovative policies call for parallel innovations in policy analysis, monitoring and assessment. Our analysis of a policy experiment aimed at supporting innovation networks in the Italian region of Tuscany intends to address some issues connected with the design, monitoring and evaluation of such interventions. Combining tools from ethnographic research and social networks analysis, we explore the structural elements of the policy programme, its macroscopic impact on the regional innovation system, and the success of individual networks in attaining their specific objectives. This innovative approach allows us to derive some general methodological suggestions for the design and evaluation of similar programmes.Innovation policy, cooperation networks, evaluation, regional development, SMEs production systems, complex systems

The Officina Emilia Initiative:Innovative Local Actions to Support Education and Training Systems

The issue of the regeneration of skills, in particular in the light engineering industry, is addressed by Officina Emilia (henceforth OE) as a crucial one in order to re-examine the interweaving of education, innovation and local development in the SMEs production systems. The project, aimed at the education and training systems, is designed to enhance the industrial culture in order to strengthen technical and scientific education. First sponsored in 2000 by the University of Modena & Reggio Emilia (Italy), over the last years OE has gathered the support of local actors dealing with the themes of training, culture, and local development. In 2009 it opened its museolaboratorio (“workshop-museum”) in which teaching activities promote an interest in the themes of work, technologies and the socio-economic development of the territory among the students and teachers of schools of all types and levels. The involvement of class groups, of teachers and other visitors takes place through active learning practices that foster motivation and develop a sense of belonging which is likely to lead to a more profitable educational experience, both secondary and tertiary, as well as to contribute to improving career prospects. Officina Emilia proposes innovative action on a local level, allowing for the implementation of effective teaching practices as well as the broadening and consolidation of best practices which might support a society-wide trend towards maintaining a high demand for a better quality of education and the ability to provide it. Ten years after the beginning of the initiative, with this paper we intend to open up the discussion on the various research issues and on the actions undertaken, focusing on the analytical tools and the main critical areas in the further implementation of the Officina Emilia initiative.Analysis of Education; Education Policy; Regional Development Policies; Innovation

Industrial districts in a globalizing world: A model to change or a model of change?

Industrial districts – and especially industrial districts in Italy – have been put forth as a model of economic development premised on the deep rooting of firms in a local socio-economic system that is both rich in skills and tied into international flows of goods and knowledge. But there is also a sense today that those districts are in transformation, that globalization has put them “on the move.” This has led some to question whether a model that is becoming many models can still in fact be a model. In this paper, we use a study of the Modenese mechanical district – an archetypical industrial district – to examine this “movement.” We argue that when properly understood the Italian districts do still offer lessons that are generalizable to other regional economies. We show that the district in question is changing, and show in particular that there has been a rise to prominence in the district of relatively small multinational firms. These are changes that are not atypical of industrial districts in Italy. We argue that a deeper look at just how the districts are changing makes clear that this rise to prominence has not severed these firms’ ties to smaller firms in the district. Rather, they have drawn upon those relations for essential support both on production and innovation. We also show also that there is a cognizance of this fact in the district, evidenced in efforts to recreate private regional institutions consistent with a district structure “on the move.” Drawing on our these findings, and on a theoretical approach that holds that productive systems in industrial districts are constituted by the multiplicity of interactions between firms, we conclude that changes in the district in question require also changes in the institutions that sustain those interactions, including especially the emergence of “new public spaces” and new “scaffolding structures.” Using the concrete example of a company created to foster collaborative technology transfer among its owner-members, we discuss the nature of the public spaces and scaffolding structures attuned to the needs of a more vertical and fragmented open district structure. We finally consider implications for public policies supporting innovation.Innovation policy; local development policies; regional development policies; evaluation management

Competition and cooperation in a metal engineering production system

In the discussion on the prospects for growth of the manufacturing system in Italy one still unsolved problem stands out: the small size of the firms. There is a great concern regarding not only sectors facing strong competition from countries with a low labour cost, but even sectors with a good position in the world market, as the engineering firms in the province of Modena. As a matter of fact, in the mechanical-engineering sector there is a large number of small firms and only very few firms belong to “groups” (and instances of foreign groups are rare): small size of independent companies is considered a sign of weakness that could be a mark of their inability to operate on international markets and thus to face the challenges of globalization. The paper investigates the systemic characteristic of the mechanical-engineering production system in Modena and the strength of many short chains of linkages within the network of companies operating at local level for the global markets. Our focus is the dynamics of change of the system. The literature on industrial districts has frequently emphasized how the firms that operate in the district are in competition with one another, when it is a question of firms specializing in the same stage of the production process; whereas they cooperate in the case of firms operating in different stages in the same production filière. This particular pattern of competition and cooperation among firms specializing in a stage could be one of the distinguishing marks of the system (“equilibrium” factors, as Brusco, 1989 and 1999, calls them). This explanation supposes that the firms can be either in competition or cooperating, we find forms of competition, for certain activities, among firms that cooperate for other activities. The data on the presence of competitors among the suppliers or the clients give an idea of how extensive this phenomenon is in the Modena engineering system. In this paper we show that the weak points of Modena’s mechanical-engineering industry lie not so much in the size of the firm as in the mechanisms that fuel and regenerate the competences needed to sustain the development of the network of firms. This line of research opens new question in the analysis of market systems and network of competences that are addressed in the last part of the paper.local production system, mechanical-engineering firms,cooperation, competition, market system

Innovative interventions in support of innovation networks. A complex system perspective to public innovation policy and private technology brokering

The linear model of innovation has been superseded by a variety of theoretical models that view the innovation process as systemic, complex, multi-level, multi-temporal, involving a plurality of heterogeneous economic agents. Accordingly, the emphasis of the policy discourse has shifted over time. It has gone from a focus on direct public funding of basic research as an engine of innovation, to the creation of markets for knowledge goods, to, eventually, the acknowledgement that knowledge transfer very often requires direct interactions among innovating actors. In most cases, these interventions attempt to facilitate the match between “demand” and “supply” of the knowledge needed to innovate. A complexity perspective calls for a different framing, one focused on the fostering of process characterized by multiple agency levels, multiple temporal scales, ontological uncertainty and emergent outcomes. The article explores what it means to design interventions in support of innovation processes inspired by a complex systems perspective. It does so by analyzing two different examples of coordinated interventions: an innovative public policy funding networks of innovating firms, and a private initiative supporting innovation in the mechanical engineering industry thanks to the set up of a technology broker. Relying on two unique datasets recording the interactions of the various organizations involved in these interventions, the article combines social network analysis and qualitative research in order to investigate the dynamics of the networks and the roles and actions of specific actors in fostering innovation processes. Building upon this comparative analysis, some general implications for the design of coordinated interventions supporting innovation in a complexity perspective are derived.Innovation policy; local development policies; regional development policies; evaluation management

Dati e strumenti di analisi per ricostruire meglio

La rapidità e l'efficacia della ricostruzione si basa su molte condizioni sedimentate – prima che il disastro naturale si verifichi nelle istituzioni, nelle capacità dei singoli individui e delle comunità locali, nella rete di relazioni che intrecciano i diversi luoghi. L'azione straordinaria dell'emergenza e della ricostruzione riannoda legami interrotti, mobilita risorse latenti, orienta lungo nuove traiettorie o accelera i pro-cessi di trasformazione che segnavano il territorio prima che il disastro lo trasfor-masse. Entrano in azione competenze di molte organizzazioni private e di ammini-strazioni pubbliche che operano in molti ambiti. In condizioni normali, efficacia ed efficienza di quelle azioni si misurano all'interno di ciascun ambito, ma l'emergenza e la ricostruzione rivelano la loro strettissima interconnessione. Dati indispensabili per sostenere quelle interconnessioni devono diventare un patrimonio ordinario a disposizione di tutti: delle amministrazioni pubbliche come della ricerca scientifica, dei cittadini, delle organizzazioni private, del volontariato

Politiche industriali per i distretti, politiche di sviluppo ispirate dai distretti. La lezione di Sebastiano Brusco

This paper will discuss two fundamental concepts of industrial policy devel-oped by Sebastiano Brusco: the role of real services to support district firms and the role of real services needed to transform groups of isolated firms into systems of firms; and the promotion of widespread changes at the level of knowledge, competences, and social relations. These concepts emphasize both that industrial policies centred on real services can treat the industrial district per se as a key policy target and that local development policies should use the concept of the industrial district as a reference model to iden-tify innovative approaches to policy design and intervention more generally. Thus, when policy making used district planning contracts as a form of support for territorial policies in Southern Italy, the industrial districts themselves became actors of policy making on a national scale. This paper explores this conceptual shift and briefly outlines some changes in the paradigm of research and in the policy framework of the last decade.industrial districts; local development policy; real services

Politiche per l’innovazione: dalla valutazione alla progettazione

We discuss how the outcomes of policy evaluation processes can provide valuable feedback in order to design more effective policy interventions. We address our analysis to policies directed at promoting innovation by fostering generative relationships among heterogeneous organizations. The empirical background of our paper is a specific policy programme: the Regional Programme of Innovative Actions (PRAI-ITT) implemented in the Italian region of Tuscany in the period 2002-2004. Starting from our policy evaluation and monitoring exercise (Russo and Rossi, 2008), we generate practical guidelines for the design of a new intervention that builds upon the previous programme's strength and overcomes its weaknesses. These guidelines concern how to write a tender that is consistent with the policy's objectives, how to design appropriate tools for the ongoing monitoring of the programme and for its ex post evaluation; how to use network analysis tools in order to represent the interactions among the programme's participants; how to use ethnographic research in the construction of the relevant data and in the interpretation of the results. We discuss what kind of data are relevant for monitoring and evaluation purposes, and what indicators can be used for the evaluation of the individual networks and of the entire programme.Innovation policy; local development policies; regional development policies; evaluation management