Grand Council enshrines structure of Innovation Park Ticino in law

In its meeting on December 11, the Grand Council of the canton of Ticino approved measures to promote innovation and support regional economic policy for the period from 2024 to 2027. These include a credit line totaling 60 million Swiss francs.

As the canton explains in a press release, this reaffirms the commitment to targeting all measures towards support for innovation and research and development activities. Over the next four years, there will be a focus on “systematically introducing cross-cutting issues such as digitization and sustainable development”, with a view to achieving the three key objectives in the area of economic development: innovation, tourism and peripheral regions.

The most important reform is the enshrining of the organizational structure of the Switzerland Innovation Park Ticino, which is currently under construction, in the legislation on economic innovation. This stipulates that the core of the innovation park will be its competence centers, which represent ever-closer synergies between universities and companies.

So far, three competence centers have been established: the Swiss Drone Base Camp, Lifestyle Tech Competence Center and Life Sciences Competence Center. According to the canton, these centers promote collaboration between research institutions and companies in important sectors for the Ticino economy, such as life sciences, information and communication technologies and mechatronics, electronics and materials engineering. They will also drive forward research and development projects, facilitate exchange of knowledge, provide work and meeting spaces, and attract companies. ce/mm