The Italian economy has suffered from structural problems for the last fifteen years, which have weakened its competitiveness. The innovation gap, by international standards, is one of those problems. Business incubators are one of the solutions proposed in the economic literature and put into practice in many countries in order to increase the birth and survival rates of extremely innovative firms.
With the help of an empirical survey of a highly representative sample of Italian business incubators and a significant subset of incubated start-ups, this paper draws an institutional and functional map of business incubators in Italy.
Italian incubators are mostly small and heavily dependent on public funding. They mainly provide logistical services, less frequently higher value added ones like consulting and networking. According to the firms interviewed, the role played by incubators is on average useful but not essential for the success of the start-up.
