FRIDA-Fostering Regional Innovation and Development through Anchors and Networks: A Cross Regional Comparison in an Evolving International Context Project Funded by the European Commission 7th Framework Program under the Socio-Economic Sciences and Humanities Theme Web site: www.fridaproject.eu

Consortium: University of Bologna (Coordinator), Grenoble Ecole de Management, National University of Ukraine at Kiev, University of Catania, University of Economics at Katowice, University of Mannheim, University of Sussex.

Lead Investigator of the Catania Unit:
Giovanni Battista Dagnino
Catania Unit Team:
Daniela Baglieri
Maria Cristina Cinici (2010-2011)
Giorgia D’Allura
Rosario Faraci
Marco Galvagno
Francesco Garraffo
Arabella Mocciaro Li Destri
Vincenzo Pisano
Staff:
Cristina De Franco

The FRIDA project aims to improve regional policy making within the EU, by advancing state of the art understanding of the importance of anchor firms to regional development and cohesion.

Anchor firms are known to be increasingly important to regional development as highly entrepreneurial, multi-national firms restructure and relocate in response to the pressures of globalisation. However, there is currently a substantial gap in our understanding of the reasons for their qualitatively different impacts on different regions, how and why they assist the development of networks and capabilities in regions, and what local policies make particular regions attractive, and influence anchor firms to contribute towards more cohesion and development.

By addressing these questions, the FRIDA project aims to both improve understanding and contribute towards the effectiveness of policy making. The outputs of the project are designed to directly help regional policy-making to better anticipate and respond to economic restructuring by helping create regional governance systems that ensure less developed regions level-up to the most developed regions, rather than more developed regions levelling-down in response to the increasing freedom of movement of capital, production and knowledge. In doing so, the project aims to directly address the main points in the call and improve development throughout Europe in a way that is more sustainable, even and socially cohesive.

The purpose of the Catania Unit of the FRIDA Project is to scrutinize the development of the microelectronics and nanotechnology cluster of Catania from an original anchor firm perspective and to examine the processes through which the roles of anchors and their networks of relationships with the most important players of the cluster evolved over the last quarter of the century. In this context, the riole of the anchor firm has fundamentally (though not exclusively) been played by ST Microelectronics Catania Site.

ST Microelectronics Catania Site