Government R&D Funding Policy for Academic Research in Italy: Are There Incentives for Climate Change Solutions?

The aim of this chapter is to shed light on the structure and the effects of the government R&D policies in Italy for sustaining or increasing academic research on topics related to climate change. We apply a conceptual framework based on the “opportunity approach” to the Italian R&D funding system for academic research to learn more about the effectiveness of potential incentives for climate change research. The data come from two datasets developed within the European Research Infrastructure for Science and Innovation policy Studies (RISIS) - EFIL, the European dataset of public R&D funding instruments, and NATPRO (module of EUPRO database), a data resource on R&D projects funded at national level - integrated with data from the Italian Ministry of University and Research. Moreover, to further evaluate the propensity of higher education institutions (HEIs) to address climate change topics regardless of the government incentives, data on doctoral theses defended at Italian universities have been analyzed. The chapter shows that - despite a profusion of policy documents highlighting the important role that science plays in tackling climate change - over the last few years, the Italian research policies have offered very limited funding opportunities to HEIs for climate change research. The funding has primarily supported short-term projects, which fall short of effectively addressing the complex challenges that our society faces. To address this, a more structured and comprehensive approach is required, with long-term financial resource mobilization supplemented by follow-on funding.