Today, Tuesday, June 10, in Cagliari, at the Sa Manifattura venue, the results of the call for expressions of interest published by Sardegna Ricerche, aimed at local companies for the development of Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) within the Einstein Telescope project, were presented.
Following the institutional greetings by Giuseppe Meloni, Vice-President and Regional Councillor for Planning of the Sardinia Region; Carmen Atzori, Director General of Sardegna Ricerche; and Alessandro Cardini, Director of the Cagliari section of the National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN), the speakers included Mara Mangia and Cesare Mou (Sardegna Ricerche), Fabio Tore (Regional Programming Center – CRP), Michele Punturo (INFN) and Massimo Carpinelli (Administrator of CRS4).
By the deadline of the call, published on March 3 and open until April 30, 91 expressions of interest were received from 78 distinct economic operators. The participating companies are mainly located in the provinces of Cagliari (26), Nuoro (25), and Sassari (20), with fewer in Oristano and Southern Sardinia. Additionally, three proposals were submitted by innovative companies based outside the island.
«The strong response to the expression of interest is a clear signal that demonstrates how ready our productive fabric is to embrace the challenge of innovation and to collaborate with the world of major scientific research», stated Giuseppe Meloni.
The goal of the initiative is to define a detailed picture of the potential interest expressed by companies operating in Sardinia in various technological fields, in order to more effectively guide potential future support activities for the ET project — which Sardinia is a candidate to host in the area around the former Sos Enattos mine, in the Nuoro region — as well as to strengthen ties with the regional production system.
«The Einstein Telescope project», Meloni added, «is not just an infrastructure work, but a true cultural, economic, and social transformation. For Sardinia, it means attracting investment, creating qualified employment, retaining young talent, and strengthening our international standing. This is not a point of arrival, but a solid foundation for building more effective and targeted policies. We are working to ensure that businesses are not mere spectators, but co-protagonists of the ET project, and we will achieve this through new calls for proposals, investments in training and digitalization, and tools for applied innovation».
«The number and quality of the expressions of interest received confirm that Sardinia’s productive fabric is ready to take on the innovation challenge linked to an internationally significant project like the Einstein Telescope», commented Carmen Atzori. «The involvement of businesses, especially small and highly specialized ones, demonstrates a technological vitality that we want to support and promote through targeted instruments, including within the framework of the 2021–2027 ERDF Programme. This is just the first step toward building a regional ecosystem capable of concretely contributing to the development of the future infrastructure and fully seizing its growth and transformation potential».
«The possible realization of this major research infrastructure in Sardinia represents a great opportunity not only from a scientific standpoint but also in terms of local impact, particularly for companies», emphasized Alessandro Cardini. «We are very pleased with the high level of participation in the call for interest, which rewards the collaboration between INFN, the Sardinia Region, and Sardegna Ricerche, and demonstrates the strong interest that the Einstein Telescope project has been able to generate among local businesses, especially in the area of enabling technologies».
Massimo Carpinelli instead stated that «CRS4 can collaborate with businesses as part of the regional strategy through its infrastructure and support the realization of the Einstein Telescope».
The call allowed companies to indicate one or more areas of technological interest. Among the most popular were virtual reality and artificial intelligence (40), indoor and outdoor environmental monitoring (31), and vacuum pipe insulation (14). As for company size, there is a clear predominance of small businesses, with a smaller but still significant share of medium and large enterprises, especially in sectors with higher technological complexity.
The event at Sa Manifattura, in addition to presenting the results of the call for interest, was also dedicated to exploring the technological trajectories related to the Einstein Telescope project and fostering direct dialogue with both participating and other entrepreneurial entities, with the aim of broadening participation and engaging new stakeholders, especially in view of the funding opportunities provided by the 2021–2027 ERDF Regional Operational Programme (PR FESR).