Thursday, October 12, 2006
Emilia-Romagna Into the Nano-Age Through New Public/Private Partnerships
Emilia-Romagna is a highly industrialized region in north-central Italy of about 4 million residents.
Manufacturing has provided Emilia-Romagna's citizens with high wages and standard of living, and sustained economic growth. Faced with increased global competition, the Emilian economy has responded creatively and aggressively, actually increasing employment in manufacturing over the last 10 years.
A key factor in the success of manufacturing has been active government policy in support of business growth, cluster development, and building effective links between applied research and advanced manufacturing.
In December 2004, the region's government announced the creation of the Regional Network for Industrial Research and Technology Transfer, made up of 27 Industrial Research and Technology Transfer Laboratories, 24 Innovation Centers and 6 Innovation Parks.
Researchers in this network have recently invented a solar-powered “nano-engine.” The size of two molecules, this new motor is as fast as a normal four-stroke engine spinning at 60,000 RPMs with potential applications in medicine, computers and manufacturing. And it's solar-powed to!
Development of this new technology has been turned over to the regional laboratory, Nanofaber. Nanofaber is a public-private partnership (a 'networked' lab) among the regional government, several public research institutes, the University of Bologna, and a group of regionally-based manufacturing firms, including SACMI a leading worker-owned cooperative.
Nanofaber's mission is to develop and commercialize this technology to the benefit of the region's clusters of small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
The nano-motor is just one of the fruits of the region's new industrial innovation policy designed, in the word's of Minister of Development Duccio Campagnoli, to ensure the regional economy's competitiveness for the next forty years.
You can read more about 'Sunny,' as the nano-motor is nicknamed , in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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