In addition to the several incentives introduced in previous years, Italy adopted new measures to improve its innovation performance. First, in May 2016, the country launched (with a two-year delay) its new 2015-2020 national research programme, which is fully operational since July 2016. The programme has a budget of EUR 2.5 billion for the 2015-2017 period and is structured around six priorities (i.e. human capital, internationalisation, research infrastructures, public-private cooperation, southern Italy, and efficiency and quality of public spending). Second, in September 2016, the government presented its new ‘Industry 4.0’ strategy (see Section 4.4 and Box 4.5.1.).
