Research: ENEA invests 5.5 million euros to develop new technologies with private enterprises

ENEA is providing 5.5 million euros over the next three years to fund its in-house Proof of Concept (PoC) programme aimed at narrowing the gap between research and industrial application. Tomorrow 12 May, the first call for tenders dedicated to companies will be published on the ENEA website, for an amount of around half a million euro, intended to co-finance the development of ENEA technologies with companies that express their interest by 9 June 2023. This first investment, funded with resources made available by the Ministry of Enterprise and Made in Italy (MIMIT) under the PNRR, is in addition to the 5 million internal fund - a further 1 million in 2023, 2 million in 2024 and 2 million in 2025 – always dedicated to finance PoC projects in collaboration with enterprises.

In this first call, companies will be able to express interest in the development of technologies chosen from around 50 ENEA patents, ranging from materials science to biotechnology, 40% of which have an international scope. Companies that co-finance projects by contributing at least 10 per cent of the costs of the selected PoC project will be granted an option right, free of charge, on the exclusive licence of the developed patent and any further results.

"The basic logic of the PoC programme is to foster win-win collaboration between the different actors involved in the innovation process right from the embryonic stages of defining a technology. Through an open innovation approach, it is possible to increase the likelihood of adoption of the results of public research by the productive fabric and for industrial partners to minimise the market risk to which companies are exposed, especially in the embryonic stages of developing a new technology” comments Gaetano Coletta, head of Offerings and Valorisation Office of the ENEA Innovation and Development Directorate.

Established in 2018, ENEA's PoC programme has so far funded the development of 36 projects with industrial partners with more than €1.6 million, aiming to create strategic innovation partnerships. Success stories to date include the new building material BIOAERMAC, highly insulating and resistant, created from waste products from the chemical industry, thanks to the collaboration with the Italian company Fluorsid spa, a world leader in the production of inorganic fluorine derivatives; the ASCANIO project for the creation of a network of sensor-sentinels to safeguard land and infrastructures, such as bridges, dams and viaducts, which will give rise to an ENEA spin-off in which industrial partners Earth System srl and GEI srl will also participate; the process to produce detoxified gluten, suitable for foods for coeliacs and intolerant persons, with nutritional and organoleptic properties superior to those of gluten-free products currently on the market.