Abstract:

The presentation will discuss the transformation posed by Industry 4.0 technologies to local productive systems of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). The transformation has a multi-level nature which can be explored considering four key components of opportunities/risks related to renewed processes of value creation and redistribution. These keys may open up paths of manufacturing renaissance depending on how the systems of SMEs change their structures. Some economic, cognitive and institutional issues impinge on the four keys, and generate specific views on place-based integrated policies of manufacturing renaissance, working at the intersection between technologies and territories. Exemplifications extracted from the EU funded project Makers will illustrate the main passages.

Speaker profiles

Marco Bellandi is full professor of Applied Economics at the University of Florence (Italy), Department of Economics and Management (DISEI), teaching industrial economics, local development and industrial development policy in under- and post graduate courses.

His research concerns cases and models of industrial organisation, local development and innovation, policies of industrial development at the Italian and international level. He has published many papers and book. Among the co-edited volumes, with Giacomo Becattini and Lisa De Propris, A Handbook of Industrial Districts (Elgar, 2009). He is involved at the moment in two EU funded projects: MAKERS; and UMETECH University and media technology for cultural heritage.

He is member of various boards of associations and journals in the fields of industrial and regional economics. He has been Pro-vice chancellor to Knowledge Transfer and External Relations at the University of Florence (2009 – 2015).