Impact of business incubators and accelerators in Italy

Among the growing number of organizations that help new businesses by providing them with physical and intangible resources, business incubators play a key role in enabling people who have initial business ideas, but not much experience, to become confident entrepreneurs and turn their ideas into successful businesses. The incubator is now recognized by numerous research studies as a promoter of innovation and used by governments as a tool to support the growth and development of young high-tech companies. In Italy, the business incubator has gained relevance in recent years, mainly due to the regulatory provisions of the government, that introduced a systematic framework in the Italian legal system aimed at promoting the birth and growth of so-called "innovative startups" and defined the requirements that an incubator must meet in order to be registered in the special section of the Companies Register and recognized as a certified incubator. Although there are numerous analyses in the literature regarding incubators and their economic effects, knowledge of Italian incubation realities still remains superficial and incomplete. This thesis aims to collaborate with the Social Innovation Monitor (SIM), a team composed of researchers and university professors interested in innovation and entrepreneurship studies. Professor Paolo Landoni of the Department of Management and Production Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Turin is the director of SIM and the supervisor of this thesis. A mapping of incubators on the Italian territory will be carried out, highlighting the main differences and peculiarities among them according to their legal nature and their performance compared to the previous year.