A first analysis
The economic potential of possible new collaborations between Italy and the United States, arising from the industrialisation of the outcomes of the innovation, science and technology dialogue.
Following up on the Declaration of the Joint Commission Meeting of 14 April 2026, in view of its Fifth US Stakeholders’ Meeting scheduled for 15 and 16 October 2026 in Washington, DC, the Transatlantic Harmonic Foundation (THF) has developed a series of Dynamic Position Papers mapping a number of significant potential correlations between Italian and American entities.
This year’s work is focused on accelerating the scientific, technological and innovation partnership between the most advanced ecosystems of Italy and the United States, and its translation into industrial co-investments between our two countries.
Scope
The Italian perimeter covers the entire national productive and research system; the US counterpart covers all 50 states.
Two documents
THF’s work starts from two Dynamic Position Papers, developed separately, that capture, across the same technology fields, both possible partnerships in industrial cooperation and market transfer (document 1) and those in industrial research and experimental development (document 2).
Cooperation between Most Relevant National Companies in the technology sectors of the 5 National PNRR Centres and US counterparts
The document starts from Italian companies and identifies their US counterparts sector by sector, mapping existing bilateral relationships, the activatable states and a hypothesis of the Genesis Mission and SYNERGY pathways.
National PNRR Centres and US Innovation Hubs
Produced in parallel and shared with the MUR, the second document starts from US clusters and labs and traces back to the opportunities for the PNRR Centres. Its most original part is the Integrative Section, which integrates a Complete US States Analysis with the National Centres framework: across 51 states and territories it provides a systematic mapping with a relevance ranking for Italy, the presence of Italian companies, technology specialisations and the political context.
The two documents are complementary in perspective and reinforce each other: the first starts from Italian companies and identifies US counterparts sector by sector; the second starts from US clusters and labs and traces back to the opportunities for the PNRR Centres. Both converge on the same priority ecosystems, confirming the robustness of the matching framework. Together, they form the most complete analytical basis available to build THF’s strategy towards the 5th US Stakeholders’ Meeting of 15-16 October 2026.
The framework
Both documents are structured around the technology verticals of the five National PNRR Centres. The figures below show, for each vertical, the affinity emerging across the 51 US states and territories.
48 states with affinity
14 states with affinity
12 states with affinity
8 states with affinity
6 states with affinity
51 systematically mapped
Technology verticals
The analysis, which also takes into account the institutional research priorities of both countries, focuses on identifying potential partnerships between research organisations, start-ups and companies across five technology verticals.
308
potential matches
Starting from this map, THF applied an algorithm to simulate the possible partnerships that could be established, taking into account both a sectoral and a geographical dimension.
Three scenarios
A preliminary estimate of potential impact, limited to the initial co-investments, across both countries.
€ 4,036 bn
resources mobilised at initial stage
+22,551 estimated FTE jobs
€ 2,461 bn
resources mobilised at initial stage
+13,128 estimated FTE jobs
€ 1,117 bn
resources mobilised at initial stage
+5,764 estimated FTE jobs
Note: figures refer to the initial co-investments only. Each scenario assumes that a share of the 308 potential matches translates into a first joint R&D partnership, from which a further share reaches the market, split equally between joint industrial laboratories and start-ups.
The proposal
On the basis of this work, THF intends to promote, in synergy with Harmonic Innovation Group and in collaboration with all institutional and corporate partners that will join the initiative, an active matching between Italy and the United States aimed at achieving these results, laying the groundwork for presenting, as early as next October in Washington, DC, some first concrete collaborations between ecosystems and trusted partners within these technology verticals.