The Business Plan Competition Schemes as a Trend Marker of the Innovative Start-up Companies’ Market: The Case of the “Premio Nazionale Innovazione” and of the “Start Cup Sardegna”

The European policies on innovation and research of the past 15 years have focused their
funding efforts in favor of the creation of the so-called knowledge-based economy.The
local/regional response to such policies however are sometimes irregular and inconsistent,
partly because of the inhomogeneous distribution of subjects capable to acknowledge and
effectively adopt such innovative directions.This delay in the harmonization of the strategic
goals of Universities, SMEs, Investors and Public Bodies has been tackled partly thanks to
dedicated governance projects, mostly funded by the EU, and through other initiatives,
such as the Innovation Prizes aimed at the selection and tutoring of innovative business
ideas. The competition applicant’s data make for a very interesting data base in order to
analyze the trends of the innovation market. With the aim to understand which sectors have
attracted the larger share of interest in term of studies and testing aimed at the creation of
business in Italy in the past 12 years, this paper analyzes the innovative proposals submitted
both to the regional selections and the ones selected for the National finals. Regarding the
regional contest, the region of Sardinia has been chosen as a test region. The analysis has
been carried out in several directions: an historic perspective, a sectorial overview and a
geographic analysis.