Rome Advanced District: A technological innovation hub

ROAD: the road towards the future that we want to travel together

The roads that meet in Rome do not only cross space, but also time. The past, the present and the future intersect at a very specific point in the eternal city: the area which is home to the former gasometer in Ostiense.

Here, the past is still clearly visible in the remains of what used to be the energy hub of the capital of Italy for about half a century during the 20th century. In the now disused plants and factories, trains loaded with coal flowed in, from which the gas that supplied the city was extracted.

The place is completely different nowadays. It has undergone a true cultural and economic renaissance and today it is one of the most interesting and attractive areas in the city.

We have already started to build the future: A new space for a new time, where Italy’s engine will be turned back on to get it on the road to tomorrow. This is “ROAD - Rome Advanced District”

ROAD's Vision

ROAD aims to build a space for sustainable innovation in the capital of Italy, an open entrepreneurial ecosystem which is capable of attracting public and private actors into the supply chain, a reference point for events and educational activities and a place to try out all things creative.

ROAD aims to be an open, accessible and inclusive place, a breeding ground for talent, a centre of knowledge and advanced research, an aggregator for the community, a playground where engineers, designers, natural and social scientists can develop solutions together for a sustainable future.

ROAD's Mission

In an area of approximately 13 hectares in the Rome Ostiense district, ROAD will be a business network capable of bringing together the public and private sector (corporations, SMEs, institutions, universities, start-ups and research centres) generating a cross-fertilisation process with an integrated supply chain perspective.

These are ROAD's goals:

to create a new IP and test plants on technologies for the ecological and digital transition;
stakeholder-shareholder engagement activities;
to attract talent to develop green jobs.

ROAD supply chain

Areas of interest:

decarbonisation technologies
circular economy, agritech and water management
renewables and sustainable mobility
energy efficiency and smart cities

Development areas:

experimentation with innovative startups and SMEs
enterprise-university collaboration and tech-transfer activities
territorial cohesion and urban and social regeneration
sharing best practices (HSEQ and asset integrity)
digitisation

Innovation activities and services

R&D and laboratory activities
co-innovation and innovative projects
organisation of corporate events or open to the ecosystem
facilitation of public-private partnerships to take part in tenders and access new national and European economic resources
collaboration with universities for research PhDs financed by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP)
promotion through internal and/or external institutional channels

ROAD for the Network:

scouting for innovative startups and SMEs to speed up open and outbound innovation processes
fast prototyping activities
facilitation of synergy between corporate venture building activities launched by the companies
entrepreneurial training through specialised partners to support the creation of new green jobs
networking with public subjects (universities, research centres), both private and institutional
application of metric models aimed at measuring and monitoring the impact of start-ups

Mindset

Actions to promote internal and external entrepreunership

Stakeholders Alliance

Partnership and external relations activities to create value for the ROAD ecosystem

Road innovation hub

Ecosystem & CO-Creation

R&D activities, tech transfer and open-innovation experiments with startups and SMEs, open labs, identification of NRRP ecosystem synergies (e.g. Rome Technopole)

Jobs

Technical and specialist training on transition jobs

Our Team

MANAGERS PROFILES

Every day we work with passion, experience, expertise and interest to make ROAD an open, inclusive place, a hothouse of talent and a centre of knowledge and advanced research.