Fincantieri gets two prestigious awards
Today, in the presence of the Minister for Education, University, and Research Stefania Giannini, at the Auditorium at Villa Farnesina in Rome, Fincantieri, represented by its Chairman Vincenzo Petrone, won one of the prizes in the Major Industrial Groups category during the National Award for Innovation ceremony. The prestigious prize was awarded to Fincantieri for promoting an innovation culture among youngsters and for having won the Andrea Pininfarina Award for Business Innovation, assigned by Confindustria, the company said in its press release.
Now in its sixth year, the National Award for Innovation, better known as the “Prize of Prizes for Innovation”, is the most important award dedicated to “Made in Italy” innovations. Established in 2008 by the Cotec Foundation for Technological Innovation of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers to celebrate the National Innovation Day, the award is bestowed by the President of the Italian Republic to companies, public bodies, or physical persons who stand out for promoting a culture of innovation.
The goal of the award is to support the innovative capacity of the business sector, universities and public research centres, public administrations, and the service sector, and to encourage innovators to continue to pursue creative activities in order to foster a culture of change in keeping with the purposes indicated by the European Commission in “Horizon 2020”.
The longed-for prize in the Major Industrial Groups category was awarded to Fincantieri for promoting an innovative approach in the relationship between the business sector and universities through its “Innovation Challenge” initiative, implemented in collaboration with its subsidiary CETENA (the Italian Ship Research Centre) and with the University of Genoa Polytechnic, and extended to the University of Palermo just a few days ago. The goal of the initiative is to promote universities as incubators for out-of-the-box ideas and to encourage the introduction of technological discontinuities in the evolution of Fincantieri products.
Fincantieri won the prize in the Industry and Services category as winner of the Andrea Pininfarina Award for Business Innovation in the “PRIZE” category; this award is granted to the businesses that best increase their competitive advantage through innovation. The three top-ranked large companies receiving this prize are also awarded the National Award for Innovation, which Fincantieri accepted today.
The Andrea Pininfarina Award for Business Innovation is organized by Confindustria in collaboration with the Giuseppina Mai Foundation, Intesa San Paolo, Medio Credito Italiano, and the Turin Industrial Association, with the technical support of Association for Quality Award Italy (APQI). In 2014, the Award focused on the issues relevant to Expo 2015, with a special prize dedicated to Andrea Pininfarina for excellence in “Made in Italy” products, “Promoting the local territory”, and “Innovation”.
Every year, Fincantieri devotes a great amount of resources and manpower in research, development, and innovation. This effort is deemed indispensable in order to maintain global leadership in its business sectors. In 2013 these activities involved over 2,000 specialized technicians and an investment of € 122 million, corresponding to the 3.3% of the Group’s consolidated revenue, about twice the national average.
Indeed, the company’s strategic positioning focuses on high-value-added naval products, tailor-made to respond to the specific needs of shipowners, and representing the state-of-the-art in terms of technology and innovation, particularly in the fields of safety, noise reduction, stability and navigation speed.